


two slow dancers

by serpentheir



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Archie Andrews Needs a Hug, Archie Andrews is a Good Friend, Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fred is alive, Graduation, High School, Jughead Jones Needs a Hug, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Jughead Jones, Post-Season/Series 04, Prom, Recreational Drug Use, Spin the Bottle, southside serpents, the riverdale weed cinematic universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 38,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24047248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serpentheir/pseuds/serpentheir
Summary: Jughead doesn’t want to think about Archie tonight. Thankfully, with the sheer number of students crowded into one room for their senior prom, it won’t be hard to avoid him. He might actually be able to enjoy the night if he can just look away, forget Archie is there, and avoid any kind of confrontation — any reminder of what he used to hope this night would be like.(or, the end of senior year is coming up quick, and jughead still hasn’t figured out what he wants to do after high school, or how to move on with his life when he’s still in love with his ex-best-friend).
Relationships: Archie Andrews & Jughead Jones, Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Veronica Lodge, Fangs Fogarty/Sweet Pea
Comments: 82
Kudos: 163





	1. spring

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is brought to you by mitski and dancing queen by abba. i made a whole playlist for this fic, because i'm extra i guess. you can listen to it here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2Mik9FasiqpZN2MEzSE63H?si=u-LUh0D1SLWhYglvBptmfw
> 
> edit: so i posted this right before the s4 finale aired and found out 5 minutes later that jughead and archie are literally going to prom together. i can't believe the show made jarchie more canon than me for once

> _Does it smell like a school gymnasium in here?_  
>  _It's funny how they're all the same_  
>  _It's funny how you always remember_  
>  _And we've both done it all a hundred times before_  
>  _It's funny how I still forgot_
> 
> -"two slow dancers" / mitski

In the end, Betty asks Jughead, and he agrees to go with her, and everything turns out exactly like their parents had wanted it to. The golden girl, the perfect student, his whip-smart crime-solving partner, arm in arm with him on their last night to celebrate high school – to celebrate everyone being together before they’re not anymore.

He doesn’t dance on principle, but Betty wants to, and Betty strikes him as the kind of person who’s been preparing for senior prom since middle school, so he won’t deprive her of the experience. She drags him out to the middle of the dance floor and puts his hands on her hips, resting hers on his shoulders, and whispers, “Just follow what I’m doing.”

He does. It’s Betty’s night, after all. He trips over his own feet, and nearly steps on her a few times, trying not to hold onto her too tightly for fear of accidentally anxiety-sweating onto the shimmery silver fabric of her dress – a dress that probably cost more than a month of his rent.

She’d gone prom dress shopping with her mom months ago, and they must’ve gone to six different stores before finding the right one. She’d sent him photos of every single one she tried on, asking for his opinion, and he told her the truth: that she looked beautiful in all of them, she should wear whichever one she liked the most, and he’d be happy no matter what. He’d resigned himself to wearing some kind of godawful tuxedo a long time ago, so when she dragged him along to a rental place on one of her shopping trips, he tried on the ones she picked out (even though they all looked the same to him, she insisted they were different) and took the one she picked out without a complaint. Her mom went ahead and paid for it without even asking him, which was kind of a relief, but it pissed him off immensely, too.

There had only been one point of contention: Betty wanted him to take his hat off. He really dug his heels in with that one, and he’d felt a little bad about ruining her vision of the photogenically flawless prom couple, but it was the One Thing he cared about. In the end, she’d let him keep it on, said something about how it was a good thing she’d picked a silver dress so it wouldn’t clash _too_ much.

Somehow, they actually make the whole perfect-prom-couple thing work. It’s nice. She’s looking into his eyes, and he’s looking into hers, and the other students have somehow pressured the DJ into stopping the ear-splitting trap music for _two_ whole slow songs. By all accounts, this is exactly how he’s supposed to be spending prom night; this is where he’s supposed to be.

He’d be able to believe that, too, if Archie and Veronica weren’t on the other side of the dance floor, twirling in and out of his line of vision. The two of them are perfect: color-coordinated, Veronica in a dark blue dress and Archie in a matching tie, a white boutonniere pinned to his lapel that matches the corsage on her wrist. They’re dancing like they actually know what they’re doing. It’s not surprising that Veronica does, ballroom dancing is probably required for a high-society rich kid like herself, but Jughead wonders when Archie got over having two left feet. Maybe they took dance lessons together, he thinks, and pushes the thought out of his head before he can be bitter about it.

He doesn’t want to think about Archie tonight. Thankfully, with the sheer number of students crowded into one room, it won’t be hard to avoid him – he might actually be able to enjoy the night if he can just look away, forget Archie is there, and avoid any kind of confrontation. Any reminder of what he used to hope this night would be like.

* * *

Jughead would’ve never admitted that he spent any time at all imagining his prom night. But the thing is, sometimes he did. Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d be having the perfect night he always imagined, but that’s where it gets messed up. By all accounts, it _is_ the perfect night, and Betty _is_ the perfect girl, but every time he’d thought about it, he’d always imagined himself with someone else.

It didn’t mean anything, he tells himself, that he’d always pictured himself going with his best friend – he just never thought anyone else would want to go with him.

The events of the last year had pushed him and Archie apart, anyways, and they couldn’t even meet each other’s eyes anymore. It really had been a miracle that the four of them stayed close for so long, but he’d known for a long time – maybe since Hiram Lodge first returned to Riverdale – that they couldn’t keep it up forever. It had been a balancing act, staying friends with Archie when Veronica’s dad was singlehandedly doing everything in his power to destroy the Southside, evict Jughead’s family and friends, and use the Serpents as scapegoats for every single tragedy the town suffered.

There had never been an explicit ultimatum; Jughead wouldn’t have felt right telling Archie to choose between him and Veronica. On some level, he’d been too afraid of the thought that Archie might not choose him. It was a quiet break, just like the one they’d had during the summer before sophomore year. Archie had pushed Jughead aside, whether he’d meant to or not, and Jughead slowly stopped reaching out, started withdrawing into himself more and spending time with the Serpents instead of Northsiders. Eventually, Archie got so busy becoming a fucking _Mafia henchman_ he more or less forgot about Jughead altogether.

Jughead tries not to be bitter about it. He knows holding a grudge will only hurt himself. And after all, he knows what kind of person Archie is – he’d seen him do the same exact thing before: get involved with someone he thought he could trust, end up in over his head in a dangerous (and illegal) situation, refuse help from anyone who was worried about him, and eventually, give everything else in his life up in exchange for that one thing. Validation was dangerous for Archie, and from what Jughead could tell, Hiram was offering it to him in spades. He had more money, more power, than anyone else in Riverdale, which meant he could offer Archie more of everything. And, Jughead was sure, Hiram could threaten him, too. 

It would be easier if he could be mad at Archie, but deep down, he’s not. He knows Archie well enough to know that he didn’t mean any harm – he never did. Jughead didn’t think he was actually capable of doing anything that wasn’t for (Archie’s own concept of) the greater good. It would be easier to be angry, but instead, he just misses him. Misses how easy things used to be when they were younger, before they had to learn about power and class and the Northside versus the Southside, back when they were just _ArchieandJughead_ lying in the treehouse at night, pointing out constellations and kissing _just to try it_.

Back before he’d realized his English teacher meant that you should be best friends with the person you want to marry, not that you should always marry your best friend – before he realized that not everyone was in love with their best friend. Before he found out that there was a difference between friend-love and romantic love, but that with Archie, they’d been the same thing for so long, he couldn’t tell them apart anymore.

* * *

The thing is that he and Archie used to get into fights all the time as kids. They’d yell at each other over nothing – Jughead can’t remember why any of their fights started – and call each other names, airing their five-year-old grievances, and that was normal.

The thing is that every time they fought, Archie was stubborn about it, or Jughead was, so they didn’t make up right away. But they always did, eventually. It wasn’t like they had any other friends. Whichever one of them got lonely first would write “make up” and “break up” on a piece of paper and silently hand it to the other, who would circle one or the other and hand it back.

The thing is that no matter what they’d been fighting about, they always, _always_ chose to make up.

When they were younger, they fought, but they always talked about it afterwards and that made it okay. But now they were too old for make-up-or-break-up. It had been too long, and there was too much space between them now. They weren’t kids anymore, but they were both just as stubborn, and it felt too late to apologize, so now there was just silence.

* * *

Even if the night isn’t what he’d always dreamed of, Jughead forces himself to let go of those memories, and when the song ends, he leans in to kiss Betty like they’re soulmates.

She’s still acting like they are – soulmates, that is – even though she’s got her entire future planned; in the fall, she’s going to go to some college, and he’ll be…god knows where. With how his grades and extracurriculars are looking, he’ll be stuck in Riverdale, exactly where everyone always said he’d end up. He can’t shake the feeling that he’s wasted eighteen years of his life trying to subvert other people’s expectations, only for them to end up being right all along. He blames himself, even though he knows it’s not all his doing – after all, he’d switched schools twice in his senior year, not to mention that he’d spent several weeks being “dead”, neither of which looks great on a college application.

In the end, he’d decided not to apply anywhere. Application fees were expensive, and his transcript was a shitshow. Betty was supportive, because of course she was, about everything, but he could tell her heart wasn’t in it. She’d been counting on the two of them being Riverdale’s crime-solving intellectual power couple for the rest of her life; she’d never wanted to consider the fact that his life wouldn’t look as good on paper as hers did.

He knows she’ll end up breaking up with him once she’s off at college, and honestly, he hopes that she does. She deserves someone who’s willing to live the kind of life she wants, and he doesn’t have his whole life figured out like that. He loves her, and he knows she loves him, but he knows their relationship has an expiration date, too.

* * *

He manages to hold it together for a couple more songs before everything gets to be too much – there’s too many people there and it feels like everyone’s staring at him, the music is too loud, and the air is hot and humid and sweaty. He takes off, mumbling something about the bathroom, and seeks refuge in the hallway. One of the faculty chaperones is hovering in the hallway, too; he’s probably supposed to be in there telling students that front-to-back dancing isn’t allowed, but Jughead doesn’t blame him for not wanting to intervene in the cesspool of horny, aggressive, sad eighteen-year-olds. Jughead avoids eye contact and hopes the teacher doesn’t ask why he isn’t on the dance floor.

After a few minutes, it gets awkward just lurking outside the dance. He’s not ready to put his everything-is-fine face back on, though, so he decides to hide out in the bathroom a little longer until he can manage to feel sociable again.

He opens the door and comes face-to-face with the one person he’d been desperately hoping to avoid.

Archie’s standing at the sink, trying to fix his hair. It’s slicked back flat against his head with too much gel. Jughead’s never seen Archie do his hair like that before. It doesn’t look like him. He probably spent hours on it before the dance – that’s one of the perks of dating a girl like Veronica, he figures. Her family cares so much about appearances that it even rubs off on a guy like Archie, who, until a year ago, hadn’t realized that conditioner and body wash weren’t the same thing.

Archie doesn’t notice him at first, just keeps running water on his hands and trying to flatten the bits of hair sticking up on the back of his head. It's completely silent, other than the quiet rush of the water running and [the music from the dance reverberating slightly through the door](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP9dInNhlkQ). Jughead knows it’ll look weird as hell if Archie notices him just _standing_ there, but if he walks past him to the stalls, Archie will actually _see_ him, and then they’ll have to interact, and the thought of doing either one makes Jughead kind of want to dissolve into the floor. He stays there, frozen, like a deer in headlights, until someone pushes open the door behind him and he has to jump out of the way. Archie looks over and does a double-take when he sees Jughead there, pressed up against the wall in a half-assed attempt to hide.

“Hey,” Archie says. Something in his voice sounds different. Jughead can’t figure out what it is.

“Hey,” Jughead says back, and the words feel wrong in his mouth. “Wardrobe malfunction?”

Archie laughs half-heartedly. “Yeah. Stupid hair gel. I look like a hedgehog.”

Despite himself, Jughead laughs too, quiet and genuine. “Yeah, you kinda do.”

It’s the most words they’ve exchanged in months, but somehow, talking to Archie like this feels almost normal. Like, even though the Archie he knows was possessed by some militia-forming, gun-toting junior Mafioso, the old Archie is still in there somewhere.

The kid who’d walked in after Jughead washes his hands silently and hurries out of the bathroom. Jughead doesn’t blame him. Weird vibes in here.

Archie turns back to the mirror and tries, again, to flatten the same piece of hair sticking out on the side of his head. Jughead laughs, shaking his head. He shouldn’t let himself do this, Jughead thinks, but he lets himself step closer to meet Archie’s eyes in the mirror over the sink.

“You got a cowlick back here.”

Archie turns around, craning his neck like he’s trying to see the back of his own head. Jughead feels bad for him – only because he knows Veronica will say something about it if she notices, and she _will_ notice – so he tries to pretend like this is a normal thing. Like, _sure, we haven’t talked in four months and I’m still kind of in love with you, but it’s so_ great _that we’re having this conversation in the bathroom! Let me fix your hair for you, pal!_

“I can get it. If you want.” He tries to sound casual, can’t tell if he’s pulling it off.

Archie glances at him quickly, then looks away. “Oh, okay, sure. Thanks, Jug.”

Jughead runs his hand over Archie’s hair, wincing at the crunchy, overly gelled texture. He manages to smooth it back into place and tries very hard not to think about the fact that he’s pretty much just stroking Archie’s hair.

“There you go. Your helmet hair is intact once again,” he says with a dry laugh.

Archie looks at him in the mirror again, and Jughead is struck by how much older he looks like this. With his hair up and out of his face, Archie’s whole appearance is severe, and it’s only exaggerated by his all-black tuxedo. Expensive, no doubt. Jughead is sure Archie’s entire night is courtesy of Hiram Lodge. Veronica’s been to countless balls and parties fancier than this; she was never shy about bragging about the Met Ball or Elton John’s Christmas party or whatever other rich person nonsense she’d been invited to, but she probably takes prom pretty seriously, too. After all, it’s a rite of passage for her, too, even if it’s taking place at the Riverdale Town Hall instead of the Ritz-Carlton.

He wonders if Archie’s enjoying himself at all tonight, or if he’s too busy trying to impress the Lodges. It would be just like Archie to do that.

Jughead realizes he’s still staring at Archie in the mirror and looks away, fixing his eyes on a water stain on the wall next to the paper towel dispenser. He wasn’t even supposed to be in here in the first place. He wasn’t supposed to run into Archie like this – wasn’t supposed to see him at _all_ , really. Maybe the night would’ve been manageable if he could’ve just forgotten that Archie was there at all – forgotten that there was ever any option besides Betty and their perfect night together. But the universe hadn’t allowed him that one favor, so he was forced to remember that this was never what he wanted.

Neither of them makes a move to leave, but Jughead doesn’t know what he’s staying for. The silence between them is dense – too quiet, even though he can hear the faint drumbeat of “Dancing Queen” seeping through the door.

He doesn’t know what to say. There’s so much he’s desperately wanted to say for so long, but there’s an unbridgeable gap between them now. An infinite stretch of time and age. Jughead doesn’t even know how to talk to Archie anymore.

He wants to make a joke – something sarcastic and dark to make Archie wince in the right way and then laugh in that wide, generous way of his – but his usual sardonic fallbacks are failing him, and he can’t think of anything to say.

What he doesn’t say:

_I miss you._

_I want my best friend back._

_I still love you._

_I don’t want to die without us being friends again._

Someone opens the bathroom door with a creak and they both jump. Jughead grabs the hem of his beanie and fixes it on his head, just for something to do with his hands. He washes his hands quickly, dries them, and slips out of the bathroom before he looks at Archie for too long and says something he’ll regret.

“See ya,” he mutters behind himself in Archie’s general vicinity, and the door creaks shut behind him, settling into the frame with a deep metal _thud_.

He slips back into the main room and spots Betty sitting at a round table on the edge of the room, engaged in some kind of debate with Ethel. He sits down beside her quietly, hoping he won’t be pulled into whatever they’re talking about. The conversation with Archie sapped his social energy, and he doesn’t know if he can handle trying to make small talk with anyone right now. Mercifully, Betty lets him just space out for a little while, and he’s grateful for her emotional intelligence – she’s usually pretty good at sensing when he’s burned out like this.

As the dance starts winding down, the music getting quieter and the dance floor emptying out, Jughead and Betty both agree that the school’s after-prom sounds like hell. They’re both too tired for it anyways. Instead, Betty changes into the spare tennis shoes she brought in her bag and they duck out early to walk the couple of minutes to Pop’s for a late-night milkshake, just like old times.

They’re both in their own little worlds, content to just sit together in silence with one another. Jughead can’t help but wonder if this is the last time they’ll hang out at Pop’s like this before Betty moves away. It’s not like they won’t see each other over the summer, but Betty will be busy getting ready to move to Connecticut, and it’d probably just be depressing for her to have him hanging around like a dead weight. Still, he tries to enjoy the moment for what it is. He does love her. He just wishes that were enough to make everything work – their relationship, his future – and wishes that were enough to keep himself from missing Archie more than he can stand.

* * *

In the second-to-last week of school, Jughead gets called down to the guidance counselor’s office. The counselor sighs, loud and obnoxious like he wants Jughead to know that his _academic failures_ are a personal nuisance for him, and tells him that he has two choices.

He can either graduate this year, with a lower-than-average GPA and shitty transcript for junior and senior year, or he can repeat senior year, which would allow him to retake his classes and get some help applying for colleges in the fall, too. If this was two years ago, Jughead would’ve been mortified to have to repeat a grade, but now, he’s well aware of just how fucked up your life can get in high school, so he lets that old competitive edge go.

“I’ll repeat the year.”

“Well. Good.” The counselor pauses, flipping nonchalantly through the papers on his clipboard. “I have to say, for someone with your academic skills, it’d be a shame to see you graduate without a college education lined up. We wouldn’t want you to end up wasting the rest of your life working at a McDonald’s, would we?” He laughs; it’s a mean, saccharine sound.

Pretentious piece of shit, Jughead thinks. As if being smart was enough to send you to college. He’s probably never had to worry for a second about what he could afford to eat or where he was going to sleep at night. Jughead clenches and unclenches his fists, focuses on feeling the muscles contract to distract himself from how badly he wants to unleash the fury of a thousand suns on this motherfucker.

He thinks about how many people he knows who’ve been looking for jobs for months, who’d be proud to work fucking anywhere, because Riverdale doesn’t have all that many options and there’s no shame in working to support yourself or your family.

He thinks about Ricky, and Sweet Pea, and Sweet Pea’s brother Ace, who are all smart as hell, but who grew up knowing college would never even be an option for them. Southside High’s graduation rate is low enough that the administrators considered it a success for them to even make it through senior year. No one ever treated _them_ like they were worthy of SAT prep, or college counseling, or any of the other bullshit Riverdale High kids get for free. Plus, college is fucking expensive, and they all have bigger, more pressing things to worry about, like medical bills and food and where they’re gonna live and how to take care of their siblings (and sometimes their parents, too). Jughead was just lucky that he got zoned for the rich kid school, and that he’d been good enough at standardized testing that the government thought he was smart enough to do something with himself, even if he _was_ poor – or _economically disadvantaged_ , as the school counselors would probably say.

He wishes someone had told him earlier that he could repeat the grade, but it’s not like he’d really been planning anything instead – he’s pretty much just been avoiding thinking about life after graduation as much as possible. All he has to do is sign some forms and tell his dad and Betty. He’s kind of dreading telling her, because he doesn’t want her to pity him or treat him like his life is some kind of dead end just because he’s not following the same path she is.

The subject comes up sooner than he expects. They’re studying for finals together, papers strewn all over Betty’s bed, and she asks Jughead if he wants to carpool to graduation together. He realizes he hasn’t actually told her that he’s not graduating. It makes the conversation kind of awkward, but in his defense, _he’s_ only really known for like three days.

He can tell she’s sad for him, even though he’s relieved by the opportunity. He also doesn’t really give a shit about graduating with the rest of his class, since he spent senior year doing his own thing (AKA switching schools and faking his own death) and he’d never really felt any kind of camaraderie with the rest of the student body. Still, though, he knows graduation is a big deal for Betty, so he offers to come to the ceremony to support her. He even agrees to sit with her family during the ceremony.

“Are you sure? My mom might get on your case about not graduating.”

“I’ve handled worse, don’t worry. I think I can put up with your mom for an hour or two.”

“Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. Also, you might want to bring some tissues. She swears she’s not going to cry, but she will.”

“Don’t worry, I’m bringing them for myself. Bet I can beat her at crying first,” he says, nudging her with his shoulder and laughing.

Betty laughs too, and rests her head on his shoulder. “You better.”

It’s easy. Comfortable. He’s glad the two of them have made it this far, and that they still make each other happy, even if he can see the end a few miles down the road.

* * *

That night, it’s Betty’s turn to pick the movie, and she wants to watch _Brokeback Mountain_. Jughead says okay, because it’s one of those movies that everyone references and he feels like he should have seen it by now. When they get to the part where Ennis is visting Jack’s parents, everything is suddenly too much and he can’t hold it together – everything about endings and missed chances and too lates making it hard for him to breathe. Betty pauses the movie for him, and he locks himself in the bathroom, sits down on the floor, and holds his breath so it won’t make any noise when he cries.

He splashes water on his face and hopes his eyes aren’t red when he sits down next to Betty again. He figures they must not be too bad, because she doesn’t say anything about it, just presses play.

After several restless, sleepless hours, he falls asleep with words rattling around in his brain. Words like _you wouldn’t do it_ , and _we coulda had a good life together_ , and _I wish I could quit you_.

* * *

The day of Riverdale High’s graduation is hot, hotter than May has any right to be. Thank god the ceremony is indoors. Riverdale doesn’t have all that much in the way of large public buildings, but the Greendale community college has an indoor basketball stadium that all the nearby high schools use for graduation, and Jughead’s looking forward to the AC inside more than anything.

Around nine in the morning, he walks over to Betty’s house and gets in the car with her and her mom and Polly to drop her off at the back door of the stadium where all the students have gathered to wait, chattering nervously. They park the car, and Jughead follows Alice into the lobby, trailing behind her as she pushes through the crowds of parents milling around.

* * *

The ceremony is long, and about as dry as he’d expected. A tall, reedy kid he doesn’t recognize gives a pretentious speech where he spends seven minutes comparing high school to climbing a mountain. It makes Jughead want to surgically remove his own eardrums. He wishes Betty could’ve been the valedictorian, but on second thought, she might’ve come up with some kind of mountain metaphor too, and he’d rather have free reign to call this kid’s speech cheesy.

When they finally get to the diploma part and the principal starts reading off the “A” names, Jughead catches himself listening for Archie’s name, wondering if they’ll read out “Archie” or “Archibald” Andrews. There’s a shit ton of kids in their graduating class with “A” last names, he realizes – he sits through Aaron, Acosta, Ahmed, Almeida, Amato, mentally keeping track as they get closer to Andrews.

The principal calls out “Angelo, Darian”.

 _Wait, what the fuck?_ Jughead thinks. _They skipped Archie_.

* * *

On the other side of the auditorium, Archie fidgets in his seat next to Hiram and Hermione. He knows his dad is kind of disappointed that Archie isn’t graduating with the other kids in his class, but Archie knows he would’ve failed the year on account of, like, going to prison and escaping to Canada and recovering from a bear attack, so he’d taken the college counselor’s suggestion and signed up to repeat senior year. He doesn’t mind it all that much, really, since he’ll get to hang around Riverdale for another year. He wasn’t ready to leave yet. Archie watches a couple of the Bulldogs cross the stage, take their diplomas, throw up a peace sign or “rock on” gesture, and shuffle off the stage. He’d been sort of looking forward to graduating with them, but just seeing how happy they all are is good enough for him.

The only person he’d ever _really_ cared about graduating with was Jughead. He wonders what Jughead’s doing after graduation. Maybe community college, like he used to talk about, or maybe trying to get an internship writing for a newspaper. Whatever he’s doing, Archie knows he’ll be getting the hell out of Riverdale as soon as he possibly can.

He listens closely when the principal gets to the J’s, waiting to see if he’ll call out “Jughead” or “ _Forsythe Pendleton the Third_ ”. He hopes for Jughead’s sake that it’s the former. They’d called out his full name during the spring graduation rehearsal, and it’d looked like Jughead was about to explode. Archie remembers watching the vice principal yell at him during the rehearsal for wearing his hat – she was like, “you know you can’t wear that on the day of graduation, right?” and Archie had _really_ wished he and Jughead were still talking so they could laugh about it together, because where the hell did she even think he was gonna wear it, on top of the mortarboard?

Thankfully there aren’t that many kids with J last names, so Archie doesn’t have to sit around waiting forever for them to get to the J-O’s. But then they call out “Jordan, Angela” and a short blonde girl who is decidedly _not_ Jughead skips across the stage. They never call out a “Jones”.

* * *

After the ceremony, Veronica begs her parents to come with her and Archie to Pop’s, and Hiram begrudgingly agrees. (Veronica didn’t have to convince Hermione – Archie thinks she might love the burgers there more than anyone else in Riverdale).

The diner is full of other Riverdale High kids in their blue and gold graduation gowns, beaming and posing for pictures with their friends in the booths. Archie waves at Reggie, who’s currently occupying the giant corner booth with the rest of the Bulldogs. They’re all clapping each other on the back and clinking milkshake glasses together. Reggie throws up a peace sign. Archie scans the rest of the booths, looking for anyone else he knows, and catches sight of Betty. They lock eyes and he half-smiles awkwardly, waving a little. She waves back, and leans over and pokes Jughead to get his attention, and that’s when Archie realized that Jughead’s the only other student who isn’t wearing graduation robes.

* * *

When Archie waves at him, Jughead gets that same deer-in-the-headlights feeling as he did when they ran into each other in the bathroom at prom. He waves a few seconds too late, probably looking like a broken animatronic, and feels a wave of relief when Archie turns away to order.

“Jug,” Betty whispers.

He leans over so she can whisper into his good ear. “Yeah?”

“I forgot to tell you. I heard from my mom that Archie’s repeating senior year, too.”

A swarm of coked-up, nervous butterflies erupt in Jughead’s stomach. _Fuck_.

At the beginning of senior year, back when he and Archie were still talking, they’d planned their schedules so they could take all the same classes. Which means they’ll be retaking the exact same classes. Which means not only is he gonna have to figure out how to survive another year of Riverdale, he’ll have to survive another year of Archie, this time without Betty or Veronica to separate them. He doesn’t know whether he should be excited or terrified, so he settles for both, with a generous side of potentially ill-advised hope.


	2. summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> summer sadness ft. the southside serpents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more mitski lyrics and gratuitous serpents content bc This Is Who I Am

> _And autumn comes when you're not yet done_  
>  _With the summer passing by, but_  
>  _I don't think I could stand to be_  
>  _Where you don't see me_
> 
> _-_ "francis forever" / mitski

Jughead gets home to the trailer just as the sun’s starting to set. He lets himself in, takes off the blazer he’d worn to look all formal and presentable (so Alice wouldn’t give him shit for looking like trash), and sits down heavily on the couch.

Okay. Another year of Archie. He can do this; he’s done it before, two – no, three – summers ago. After the road trip fiasco, he’d managed to avoid Archie for almost an entire month of school, even though they were in most of the same classes, and Archie had never really pressed him on it. Archie hadn’t always been the best at taking hints, but Jughead was grateful that Archie had left him alone then, until he’d sorted out the rest of the shit in his life and they’d both gotten over their stubbornness and made up.

Maybe that’s the best way to go about it now. Just pretend like they don’t know each other, like it’s not weird unless Archie makes it weird. They can just be classmates, classmates without years of confusing, tangled history that make even the smallest interactions uncomfortable. The less time he has to spend around Archie, the better – the less Jughead will have to confront that part of himself that really, _really_ wants to see him.

* * *

The summer inches by. Most days are too hot and humid and gross to go outside, so he spends most of his time just hanging out in the trailer doing nothing, except for the days when he's picking up shifts at Mike's Grocery. He hates the customers there (mostly because he's generally cynical and doesn't like most people, although food service customers _do_ tend to ask stupid questions), but he's actually grateful to have something that gets him out of the trailer every once in a while. And it's nice to not worry too much about affording food. Sometimes, when they’ve got a bunch of food they’re supposed to throw out at the end of the day – stupid corporate regulations that make them throw out food that'll be good for at least a few more days – the manager will look the other way so Jughead can stuff a bunch of mediocre prepackaged sandwiches and burritos and whatever else they have into his bag, and that's what he eats for the next couple of days.

He's not struggling, not really. Not like he used to, anyway. FP has a savings account (where the money came from, Jughead isn't sure he wants to know) that he’d told Jughead to use for any bills that show up, or whatever else he needs. Thankfully, he doesn’t need much. They own the trailer, and the lot rent isn’t too expensive. He doesn't drive his dad's truck because it gets shitty gas mileage – his motorcycle is more fun anyways – and he can walk wherever he needs to go. Day-to-day things like that are easy, at least by his standards. But as the summer wears on, he starts to feel the effects of everyone’s pre-college chaos: no one’s around much to hang out, and it gets lonely.

He considers, for a second, calling his dad: he’s been trying to keep FP updated on his life, explaining as much as he can about the whole Archie-and-Hiram thing even though he knows it doesn’t make sense, and he thinks his dad might understand this, or at least he’d say something that would make Jughead feel a little better, like “hang the rich” or something similarly unrelated-but-sort-of-related enough to make him laugh.

He wants to call, to hear another voice and know that there’s someone else who at least knows about this, but he's been having trouble picking up enough shifts lately, and Shankshaw’s upped the charges to call inmates, so he knows he can’t.

Maybe he'll just write him a letter. “ _Dear dad, I'm repeating the school year because of all the being-dead stuff. Also, I'm in love with Archie. How's life for you?”_

Yeah, maybe not.

* * *

Later that week, after a long and exhausting shift at the grocery store, Jughead finds himself craving anything other than the shitty sandwiches from Mike’s. He decides he has enough energy left to walk to Pop’s, so he grabs his phone and earbuds and heads out. On the walk there, he shuffles through song after song, trying to find something tolerable, but his music library might as well have a personal vendetta against him, because every song that pops up just serves to remind him of Archie.

 _I watched you through your window, I was wearing that dumb sweatshirt_ – Nope. 

_It’s been a long, long time since I memorized your_ – Hell, no. Not now.

 _I wanna see your pom-poms from the stands_ – No. Sorry, Mr. Ocean.

 _I may not always love you, but_ – No, god damn it. Wasn’t there a single song out of the, like, nine hundred he had saved that didn’t make him think about Archie?

He doesn’t feel like acknowledging the possibility that _he_ might be the one turning every song into something about Archie.

Pop’s will be a much-appreciated break from all the depressing music. The jukebox is usually on, playing an old slow song for some couple out on a date, who spend the whole song giggling in the booth, or, sometimes, actually getting up and dancing with each other. 

Jughead pushes open the door, hoping for some Nina Simone or Frank Sinatra, but once inside, he’s reminded that Veronica’s speakeasy-club-thing exists, and that she’d appointed herself the diner’s personal DJ once it opened. Something about creating the right “vibes”, she’d said. It makes sense, he figures, that she’d want to spend her last summer in Riverdale at the speakeasy, reveling in the glory of her first of many capitalist successes to come.

Thankfully, the music she’s picked isn’t intolerable. It’s a vaguely familiar upbeat indie pop song that he remembers from a few years ago, but can’t recall its name. One of those songs that’s so catchy, you learn the words even if you don’t mean to. While waiting in line, he tries to keep himself from humming along – _you’ve expressed explicitly your contempt for matrimony, you’ve student loans to pay and will not risk the alimony_ – but the song is kind of contagious, and he can’t help it. He zones out slightly, until it reaches the chorus and he’s very quickly reminded of what the song is called. Damn it. He steps up to the counter, trying to mentally block out the refrain of _hey, hey, marry me Archie_ that now sounds less like a cheerful love song and more like nails on a chalkboard.

He orders his usual and slinks over to the booth in the back corner to wait. _Fuck this cheerful-ass song_ , he thinks, _and fuck Veronica for putting it on her playlist, and fuck whichever Archie guy the song was_ actually _written about_ _for reminding him of_ his _Archie_.

* * *

Towards the end of June, Jughead finally goes and visits FP. He figures his dad probably doesn't get too many visitors, so instead of just calling him like usual, he takes the bus up to see him in person.

Their conversation is separated by a glass wall, but the other inmates and guards around them are all distracted enough – or just don’t care – so he still feels like they have some privacy, thank god. They make small talk at first, until his dad asks how the end of the school year went, and that’s when Jughead tells him that, well, actually, he didn’t graduate this spring, and he’s going to repeat senior year. He isn’t surprised when his dad looks shocked. He’s always been used to Jughead coming home with straight-A report cards and doing all his homework without being told, so FP didn’t see it coming, but he’s not hostile about it. Not at all.

Jughead knows that FP, more than almost anyone, understands the pressure he’s faced as a Southside kid in a Northside school. His dad has felt it himself, and he’d had to navigate the weird, uncertain road-less-traveled after senior year, too.

“You made the right choice, kid. Sounds like you know what you’re doing.”

“I think so,” Jughead says, with a half-hearted laugh. “I hope so, at least.”

Jughead is caught off-guard when FP asks, “How’re things with you and Betty?”

“Good, I mean, they’re good, but…she’s going to college in the fall, in another state, and I’m staying here, and…” He trails off, and FP nods, understanding what he means. “I love her, y’know, but she’s going somewhere else with her life. And that’s okay, it’s just…hard, I guess.”

FP offers him a sad smile. “Yep. Things change a lot after high school. Even the good things, I’m sorry to say.” He shakes his head and says, “I feel like I just graduated high school yesterday.”

Jughead knows his dad’s probably just feeling nostalgic, but he can’t help the anxiety that swells up inside him – anxiety and fear that he, too, might blink and realize thirty years of his life have passed him by.

He knows his dad could talk for hours about high school, but the need to tell him – to tell _someone_ – about Archie practically forces its way out of him. He tries his best to sound casual, clearing his throat and saying: “Oh, I found out that Archie’s doing the same thing. Repeating the year.”

FP raises his eyebrows, waiting for Jughead to continue.

“Yeah, they didn’t call his name out during graduation, and Betty told me afterwards.”

“Huh. You two aren’t talking much anymore, are you?” FP asks.

“No, not in a while.” Jughead tries to keep his voice light. “Not for a couple months, I guess. ‘Cause of all the stuff with the Lodges.”

FP scoffs. “No kidding. Kid was in way over his head with that. I’m surprised he didn’t drop out to join the mob or whatever it is Hiram’s involved with.” He pauses for a few seconds, then continues, his voice quieter. “I don’t know what happened to that kid. Doesn’t sound like the Archie I used to know, from what you’ve told me.”

Jughead nods. “That’s why we…grew apart, I guess. He turned into someone I didn’t know. Someone I didn’t want to see him become.”

FP makes a quiet noise of agreement. “So how’s it gonna work, repeating the year with him? Are you two in the same classes?”

Jughead winces. “Yeah, I think so. Unfortunately.”

“What about Veronica, is she going to college?”

“What do you think?” Jughead asks with a dry laugh. “She is. Probably some bullshit Ivy League, too, but I don’t know. I don’t hear from her anymore, either.”

“It’s a shame,” FP says, and Jughead isn’t sure what he means at first. “You all seemed like such good friends. I was happy for you, you know; I never really had all that many friends in high school. Not close ones, at least. Mostly just Fred.”

“Yeah,” Jughead agrees, not sure what to say. “It was mostly just Archie for me, too,” he adds, before he can stop himself.

“What about Betty?”

Jughead scrambles to make up an excuse. “Well, I mean – yeah, Betty was my friend, obviously—but she wasn’t my _best_ friend, I guess. Or she was, but in a different way. There was…something I had with Archie that I never had with her. I don’t know.” He wipes a hand over his face. This was not supposed to be the afternoon of halfheartedly coming out to his dad, or whatever it is he’s doing.

“Sounds like you do know.” FP smiles, but he doesn’t press any further. Jughead had figured he would understand, that’s why he’d wanted to talk to his dad about this in the first place, but it’s kind of embarrassing that his feelings are _that_ transparent.

“Yeah,” Jughead concedes. “Maybe for a long time.” He figures he’s already made himself vulnerable enough that being honest won’t hurt, and adds, “I miss him.”

FP is silent for a moment, then says: “Maybe this year will change something for you two. I mean, I’m not saying you have to do anything with him, or for him. It sounds like Archie fucked up pretty bad. But it sounds like you miss him, too.” When Jughead doesn’t respond, he adds, “The two of you have something special, I can tell. You always have. It’d be a mistake to just give it up.”

Jughead feels tears pricking at his eyes, and he blinks hard, trying to will them away. “Yeah. I hope so, Dad.” 

They sit in companionable silence for the next few minutes, until one of the guards announces that visiting hours are over, and Jughead says goodbye and promises to visit his dad again as soon as he can. Some part of him hopes that he’ll have good news for his dad about the whole Archie situation eventually – maybe sooner rather than later.

* * *

Jughead spends the rest of that week alternating between working shifts at Mike’s and wandering aimlessly around the town, mentally cataloguing the signs of life inside and outside the homes of people he knows. Even if it hasn’t been that long, and the town doesn’t physically look all that different, he _feels_ the change, feels everyone getting ready to go their own way. And it’s the first time in almost ten years that he’ll be starting out the school year without the security blanket of Archie’s friendship.

After one of his long, meandering walks around the Southside, he returns to the trailer with an idea, that familiar itching sense of _I need to write this down before I forget it_. He walks back into the living room, grabs his laptop, and heads outside.

There’s a spot behind the trailer, on the side facing away from the rest of the trailer park, where Jughead likes to hang out every once in a while. Back in sophomore year, his dad had set out four plastic lawn chairs – only two of which ever got used. Jughead sits down in one, kicking his feet up on the chair across from him, and unfolds his laptop. It’s his favorite spot in Sunnyside: it’s bracketed by a fence, with tall pine trees lining the lot on the other side. He can still hear the traffic from the street, but he can’t see the cars, and no one can see him. It’s like his own little safe haven, greener and brighter than most other places in his life.

He sits there for hours, tapping out page after page, until he’s so focused that he doesn’t even think about what he’s writing, just lets his hands type line after line. He doesn’t worry about including any sense of plot or organization, just lays out his thoughts before himself. Every time he’s finished a paragraph, he scrolls down on the page, blocking the words so he can avoid re-reading them – he’s afraid that if he does, they’ll be so horribly embarrassing that he’ll have to stop writing. He watches his fingers press the keys, feeling pleasantly detached and idly noticing that he keeps pressing the same ones – _Archie, Archie, Archie_ – every few words.

It’s been a while since he just sat down and wrote like this. It’s always relaxing, this kind of stream-of-consciousness writing, much more so than the kind of meticulously researched and outlined papers he’s used to churning out for school.

He tends to spend so much time in his head – his dad always said so – that he loses track of his thoughts and everything turns muddy and confusing and chaotic. Like his brain is trying to think about too many things at once. Writing it down like this forces him to slow down; while his brain can run a mile a minute, catastrophizing and spinning out fake conversations and arguments, his fingers can only type out one thing at a time, so he has to focus on one train of thought. Depending on the day, he can spend hours just writing and writing. If it’s a good day (or a particularly bad one, where he needs to vent or he feels like he’ll explode), he can turn off his mental filter and pour out everything he’s thinking about into yet another Word document that he’ll eventually store in a secret folder within several other inconspicuously-named folders.

He stays there as the night slowly closes in around him, the sun sinking down in the sky and then finally out of sight behind the trees. Eventually, the computer screen starts to hurt his eyes, and he realizes his ass has gone completely numb from sitting in a shitty plastic chair for so long. He sets his laptop carefully on the chair across from him, wincing at the sound of his joints popping as he moves for the first time in hours.

The night is quiet, traffic on the street still persistent but he’s so used to it that he doesn’t register it as anything more than a hum in the background. The circle of empty chairs around him suddenly feels like it’s mocking him. He realizes how long it’s been since he actually hung out with anyone – at least a few weeks, maybe since graduation.

He’s vaguely aware that Sweet Pea and Fangs and Toni are all doing their own things, getting ready for wherever their lives are going, and he’s struck by the fact that he doesn’t even know what any of them are doing this fall. They’re supposed to be his best friends. They _are_ his best friends, he corrects himself, because he loves them, and because it’s not like he has anyone else to call his best friend. Thinking about not having one makes something inside him twist uncomfortably.

He doesn’t even know whether any of them are home, and he’s never been one for randomly knocking on people’s doors, so he does the next best (next worst) thing, and calls Toni.

“Hey, what’s up?” Toni sounds a little worried. It makes sense – Jughead doesn’t tend to call people out of the blue, so she probably thinks there’s something wrong.

“Hey. Nothing, just bored. Do you want to come over and hang out at my place? Sweet Pea and Fangs, too, if they’re not busy.”

“Oh, okay, cool. Hold on.” He hears a crackle as Toni covers the mouthpiece of the phone before calling out to whoever she’s with. “Want to go to Jug’s?”

Jughead can faintly hear two voices say, simultaneously, “Okay.”

Toni uncovers the microphone. “They said okay. When do you want us to come over?”

“Eh. Whenever.”

Toni laughs. “’Kay, I mean, we’re, like, five hundred feet away, so it’ll be like two minutes.” Jughead hears one of the voices – Sweet Pea, he’s pretty sure – call out, “Can I bring weed?”

Jughead laughs. He’ll admit, he even missed Sweet Pea. “Tell him I said he can and he should, as long as he’s sharing.”

Toni relays the message, and adds, after a second, “He’s giving you a thumbs up.”

“Nice.”

“Okay, we’ll be over in a sec,” Toni says, and hangs up.

Jughead has the sudden thought that it’s been several weeks since anyone except him has been in the trailer, and he should probably clean up. He darts inside, puts his laptop in his room, and spends the next few minutes picking up all the cups laying around the trailer and tidying up the pillows and blankets on the couch.

Sweet Pea comes in first, knocking once and then opening the door a split second later. Fangs follows him into the living room, then Toni, until they’ve all assumed their usual positions: Toni and Fangs sprawled out on the couch, and Jughead and Sweet Pea sitting on the floor – both because Jughead is a gracious host who would gladly give up the couch, and because no one trusts the only other chair in the room: a loveseat that they’ve all heard unsettling stories about, involving both its age – older than FP, and “just as busted”, according to him – and its involvement in several of Fred and FP’s high school encounters, which Jughead wishes he could forget.

Once they’ve all caught up on how their last few weeks have been, airing their grievances about work and customers and the heat while passing a joint around the circle, and Jughead has migrated to the couch, squeezing in between Fangs and the arm, he asks about their plans for the fall.

Toni announces that she and Sweet Pea are both moving to Greendale to take classes at the community college there and work part-time. Fangs adds, shyly, that he’s going to the University of Pittsburgh, because he got a scholarship, and because it’s close to where Kevin’s going to school. Jughead sees a flicker of something cross Sweet Pea’s expression at that, but it’s gone before he can say anything.

“That’s awesome, guys,” he says, clapping Fangs on the back. Fangs smiles down at his lap. “What are you all majoring in, then? Did you already declare your majors and stuff?”

“I did,” says Fangs. “I’m majoring in education, minoring in music. I think I might try out being a teacher.”

“Sweet.” Jughead’s proud of him. He hopes Fangs is proud of himself too, he deserves it. He’s usually so self-effacing; Jughead has never seen him gloat or brag or even just mention one of his achievements, but he thinks he deserves to brag a little about this one. Not a lot of people had held out hope for any of them during their childhoods, but that hadn’t stopped Fangs – or any of them, for that matter – from making something of themselves. “So,” he continues, “What made you want to be a teacher?”

Fangs leans back against the couch and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. “I mostly just want to help kids like us. Kids growing up like we did, I mean. They deserve to have someone treating them like they’ve got an equal chance at life, like they’re not just future gas station employees in the making.”

Sweet Pea makes a noise of agreement. Toni puts her hand over Fangs’, turning towards him. “That’s so cool, Fangs. How come you never told us?”

Fangs shrugs. “I dunno.”

Toni leans into him, shoving him playfully. “I don’t know,” she repeats. “Come _on_ , Fangs, we’re your friends! We want to know about this kind of stuff! You need to have more faith in yourself.”

Fangs gives in, cracking a smile. “Okay, okay, fine.”

Sweet Pea chimes in from the other side of the room: “We should be celebrating. Fangs is going to fucking college!” Fangs crosses his arms over his chest and tries to hide his smile. If Jughead didn’t know any better, he’d think he was blushing.

“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” Jughead asks, glancing pointedly at the joint in Sweet Pea’s hand.

“Oh yeah,” he replies, like he’d forgotten about it, and takes a drag.

“And you’re going to college too, you know,” Jughead adds.

Sweet Pea makes a noncommittal noise. “I dunno. I guess.”

“Hell yeah, you are. Community college fucking counts. The Riverdale counselors are just stupid, elitist fucks who don’t think that college _counts_ if it costs less than sixty grand a year. Community college slaps, dude. Rich people just don’t want you to find out about it ‘cause they want to hold onto their wealth or whatever.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sweet Pea says, laughing and shaking his head with the _what-weird-shit-are-you-talking-about_ expression he reserves for Jughead.

“So what are you majoring in? Both of you,” Jughead asks, gesturing at Sweet Pea and Toni.

“Minecraft,” Toni says with a straight face. Jughead stares at her.

“Minecraft as well,” Sweet Pea chimes in from across the room.

“Wow. I’d heard of colleges getting rid of grades and majors and shit, but that’s a new one,” Jughead deadpans.

“Yeah. Really progressive. There’s a lot to Minecraft, you know,” Toni replies.

“I’m sure. I never played it.”

“That’s a shame,” Sweet Pea says. “You’re not gonna know anything about what your two best friends are studying.”

“Guess not,” Jughead replies.

After a few seconds, Toni says, “Nah, I’m doing political science. It’ll just be like hearing the same stupid arguments I heard in high school, except this time I’ll get good grades for going the fuck off on them, instead of getting sent to the principal’s office.”

For a brief second, Jughead is worried for Toni’s future classmates. He’s seen her in going-the-fuck-off mode and it’s terrifying. Although, he realizes, if she’s yelling at them, they probably did something to deserve it. Like saying rich people are only rich because they worked harder than everyone else _._ He stops feeling sorry for them, and immediately wonders if he’d be allowed to come sit in on some of the debates.

“I’m doing social work,” Sweet Pea adds, his voice a little quieter than usual. “And minoring in bio, if I can survive the classwork. I might want to do some sciencey shit. I was good at it in high school, at least. I’m the same as what Fangs said; I want to, like, help people who are in the same kind of situations as us.”

Although they’ve grown closer over the past year, Jughead has never seen this side of Sweet Pea before. He’s so proud of his friends, and so excited for them too, even if it means they won’t get to see each other as much.

Eventually, Sweet Pea joins the three of them on the couch, and they all sort of fit, although he has to lie sort of horizontally across all of them so his legs fit. They flip through the TV channels and finally settle on the Food Network (although they only have a couple of channels, so it’s not that hard of a decision). Jughead relaxes into the couch, feeling sort of like he’s melting, and thinks about how grateful he is for their company and their comfortable, easy silence.

* * *

Jughead spends the last few weeks of summer dreading having to break up with Betty. Even just thinking about it as a break-up is weird; it feels more like parting ways, letting a good thing go now that its time is up. It won’t be dramatic or angry or anything; at least, he hopes it won’t. Ideally, it’ll be way more chill than how he imagines most breakups are. That probably says something about how he views relationships, but he figures that’s a problem for his future self.

He decides to talk to her about it a few weeks before she moves out, because moving all your stuff to a new home 100 miles away sounds stressful enough, and he doesn’t want to make it worse. He ends up at Betty’s house on an early August night. She isn’t expecting him, exactly, but the conversation seems like it’s been coming for a long time.

“I’ve been thinking,” he starts. “About – about us.” He keeps his eyes carefully fixed on a point on the wall. He doesn’t want to look at her; he’s too afraid of seeing her face. Anger, sadness, pity, confusion, guilt – he doesn’t know which would be worse. “You’re going away in a few months – well, like, a month now – and I’m gonna be here in Riverdale for another year.” _Please let it only be a year_ , he thinks. “I know we said we were gonna try to make the long-distance relationship thing work, but I’ve been thinking, and I…think you should go off to college feeling totally free. Free of everything in Riverdale, so you can do whatever you want, and have all those stereotypical college experiences you’re supposed to have. I don’t want to hold you back from it—”

Betty cuts in. “You’re not holding me back from anything, Jug.”

“I would be, though. I know I would. And I know you’d have a harder time telling me that down the road, so I wanted us to talk about this now. So you won’t have to worry about it.”

“Are you breaking up with me?”

Jughead feels a little sick to his stomach. “I…I guess so. Yeah.”

He finally turns to look at her, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. She sits there silently for a few minutes, deep in thought, occasionally wiping her eyes with the end of her sleeve. Jughead’s used to Betty’s Intense Concentration Mode, and he knows the best thing he can do is just wait, let her think, let her weigh the aggravating and mitigating factors or whatever it is she’s doing.

Eventually, she turns to look at him, her stare hard and unwavering even though her eyes are still slightly red. Jughead just sits there, staring back at her, until she breaks eye contact and looks away.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t elaborate.

“Yeah?” Jughead feels his panic response start to fade.

“I love you.” She pauses. “And I hate the idea of going off to a new state, away from everyone and everything I know; it’s fucking terrifying and the thought of you being there to Skype with me at night was really comforting, but…I think you’re right, this is for the best. I’m gonna be really busy, especially during my first semester, with orientation and figuring out my classes and the campus and everything, and I probably won’t have enough time to be around very much. For you, I mean. I don’t think I would be a very good girlfriend.”

Jughead just nods and keeps listening. Betty takes a deep breath. “It freaks me out to have to figure out who I am all over again – I mean, I can’t wait to be my own person and not have my mom breathing down my neck all the time, but I barely know who I am outside of all of this.”

She gestures to the room around her; the piles of AP test prep pamphlets, textbooks, and her binders for school, all color-coordinated and full of tidy notes. (Jughead had given up on organization halfway through the year, called it senior-itis, and just said _fuck it_ and stuck all his loose papers in his backpack).

“I can finally have a _fresh start_ ,” Betty continues, laughing weakly. Jughead appreciates her trying to joke about this even though it clearly hurts – he knows that particular coping mechanism well, and it makes his heart seize a little.

“I love you too,” he starts. “This doesn’t change that; I still want us to be friends.” He smiles in a half-sarcastic asymmetrical way, like _can you believe I’m saying something so cliché_? “I want you to be able to go all out at college. Like, jump in headfirst, do all the weird orientation stuff, make new friends, join clubs and all that stuff. I know you’re gonna love it, college is gonna be perfect for you. I don’t want to get in your way or weigh you down or…prevent you from having the kind of experiences you want. You deserve to do whatever you want.”

He takes a deep breath and exhales. The air between them is too still, too sad. “Besides, I still wanna hear about your crazy RA and the weird people you meet during orientation. You promised.” Betty looks back at him and smiles, and Jughead knows she can probably tell he’s tearing up a little too. “I’m not saying you have to, like, move on right away. It’d probably be weird if you did, ‘cause this is gonna mess me up for a little while too. But eventually you will. Even if it doesn’t feel like it right now, that’s just who you are. You’re good at finding things to love in people. You’ll meet someone who’s on the same—” He tries and fails to find a better word choice. “—journey as you.”

Betty laughs and shakes her head. “Really? ‘Journey’?”

“Hey, I thought we were having a moment!” He elbows her lightly. She elbows him back. They both sit there, looking at the floor, for a few quiet seconds.

Suddenly, Betty turns back to him and wraps her arms around him, hugging him fiercely. It catches him off guard, and he laughs, which isn’t really the emotion he’d meant to convey, but he hugs her back. It occurs to him then, not for the first time, that he’s gonna miss this. They really did have a good thing going, even if he’s known for a while that it would have to end.

Later that night, he says goodbye to her, and wishes her good luck with moving everything out. He offers to help her pack things up if she needs it, but she just laughs and says that her mom has been obsessively planning and packing everything since April. He offers to help with anything she might need, anyways, and hugs her one last time before heading back home.

* * *

A week or so later, in mid-August, Jughead invites Sweet Pea and Toni over under the pretense of hanging out like usual, but he has a surprise for them.

A few weeks ago, when he’d visited his dad, during their discussion of random small-talk stuff, FP had asked if Jughead had driven the truck up there to see him, which made Jughead feel a little guilty for not using it at all. The thing is, he’d never liked driving it: he hadn’t been allowed to use it in high school, and now that his dad was in prison, it just felt weird to think about driving around in a shell of his dad’s old life. As he’d explained that to his dad, he’d had an idea. He wasn’t using it, but he knew someone – well, two someones – who would.

His dad had, unsurprisingly, approved of the idea – no matter what, he’d always treated the other Serpents like family, and was more than happy to help them out.

Jughead starts out explaining his rationale to Toni and Sweet Pea: since they'd be moving to Greendale together, they’d need some kind of transportation to get from school to work to wherever it is they end up living. He’s careful not to hype it up too much – the truck is at least as old as he is, and he tells them as much: _this thing is a piece of shit, don't get your hopes up too much, it might break down on you,_ just in case it does, so he knows they won’t be let down when he finally shows them the beat-up old pickup.

Sweet Pea tries not to look excited, but his eyes go all wide and lit-up (a look he usually reserves for Fangs) and Toni hugs him, although her hugs always seemed like more of an intimidation tactic than a gesture of affection. Like, _"I may be five-foot-two, but I could crush your ribcage if I wanted to."_ She'd never actually said that. She just sort of has that energy. Toni miraculously gets the truck to start on the first try, and the three of them pick up Fangs and head to Pop’s to celebrate their last night together.

* * *

The last night of summer vacation is strangely cold, which Jughead doesn’t mind in the least. He spends the evening out in the trailer’s backyard, writing and daydreaming. When it finally gets too dark to see, he decides to try actually going to sleep at a reasonable time, so he’ll have time to shower in the morning (and hopefully avoid developing raccoon-like eyebags this early in the semester). Just because he doesn’t want to be all tired and gross, not because he’s trying to impress anyone.

It’s surprisingly hard to actually fall asleep, though. He feels like a kid again, tossing and turning in bed because he’s too excited about the first day of school to go to sleep – although it’s not excitement this time. He doesn’t think so, at least. More likely, it’s probably anxiety, or dread – dread of reading the same books in English class, doing the same stupid calculus problems that he knows he _still_ won’t understand, and of imagining all the daydream-and-nightmare situations where he and Archie have to sit next to each other in class or get assigned to the same group. If he thinks about that for too long, it feels like his chest is about to burst like John Hurt in _Alien_ – from anxiety, mostly, but also the tenuous potential of this year; whether it’ll be an awkward year spent avoiding Archie, or, as he’s almost afraid to hope, a chance for them to start all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the songs jughead shuffles through are:  
> like or like like / miniature tigers  
> futile devices / sufjan stevens  
> forrest gump / frank ocean  
> god only knows / the beach boys  
> shameless plug for my jarchie playlist: it’s been in the works for literally 3 years (i probably shouldn't be proud of that) so if you like the general Vibes of those songs, here’s the full version! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4XXDkt57gaMAeqBhIlO5ap?si=JflWwfD-R_meaZ-brwsnVw 
> 
> thank you SO much to everyone who's commented so far!! it means so much to me, and it really helps me stay motivated to keep working on this and posting chapters asap :")


	3. fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chemistry class and long-awaited conversations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is a little delayed! i kind of went ham with it, so hopefully the fact that its longer makes up for it. i was super excited to write the ending scene, hope u enjoy! <3

> _I'll be around on Sunday, if_   
>  _You'll meet me at blue diner_   
>  _I'll take coffee and talk about nothing, baby_   
>  _At blue diner, I'll take anything you want to give me, baby_
> 
> _-_ "old friend" / mitski

On the first day of school, Jughead decides to lay low and just try to avoid Archie as much as he can. _Just get through the day_ , he tells himself. To his relief, Archie does a pretty convincing job of ignoring him too, despite the fact that they’re in literally all the same classes. Jughead is incredibly relieved that his first and second-period classes, English and Physics, allow students to pick their seats, so he doesn’t even have to acknowledge Archie’s existence. He can just sit in the back, like usual, and keep his eyes on his own paper, occasionally pulling out a book to read when he finishes his work early.

They both have third-period chemistry together, too, with the same teacher Jughead had last year: Mr. Finkelstein, who doesn’t believe in letting students pick their own seats or read during class. Last year – during the time when he was actually _going_ to Riverdale High – Jughead fell asleep while taking notes in his class at least three times. To be fair, Mr. Finkelstein had the most boring, monotone voice in the world, and he always turned the lights off when he lectures so everyone can see the PowerPoint, and a dark classroom with a teacher droning on about hydrogen and covalent bonds was more or less _asking_ him to fall asleep. Mr. Finkelstein had liked Jughead, though – he’d actually called him his favorite student once, probably because Jughead didn’t have any friends in the class, so he didn’t talk, and thus got all his work done early.

When Jughead walks past Archie to claim his seat at the very back of their chemistry classroom, Archie keeps his eyes fixed on where he’s pulling stuff out of his backpack – pens, pencils, a protractor (for some reason), a half-empty Mountain Dew – until Jughead's sitting down, well out of Archie's range of vision, and he sees Archie start putting everything back in his bag. He tries not to laugh at how obvious it is that Archie was just doing it to have something to look at other than him.

While Mr. Finkelstein talks about learning objectives and homework and tests and all the other bullshit he’d already sat through last year, Jughead spends the rest of the class trying to memorize the periodic table from a poster on the wall. Anything to avoid looking at Archie, or watching him take stupid notes with his stupid erasable pen (why even bother with a pen if you’re going to erase it?), or listening to him ask the teacher stupid questions, except he can still _hear_ Archie, so it doesn’t really work.

When the teacher pauses to ask if anyone has questions, of _course_ Archie has to raise his hand and say something about how he’s repeating the year, and ask whether he’d be allowed to skip out on any homework since he’s already learned the material.

“Well,” Mr. Finkelstein chuckles, in the condescending tone Jughead’s used to. “You may have taken the class before, but Mr. Waters teaches the material _quite_ differently than I do. No, Archibald, you’ll be doing the same work as everyone else. You might be surprised by how much there is to learn outside of what Mr. Waters taught you.”

Jughead wonders why Mr. Finkelstein has so much beef with the other chemistry teacher. He spends a few minutes coming up with a variety of scenarios: maybe Mr. Waters had an affair with Mr. Finkelstein’s wife, maybe – or, even better, the two of them are ex-lovers, and Mr. Finkelstein is still secretly heartbroken about their breakup – until he’s rudely interrupted by the worst part of the class: assigning lab groups.

“I usually do this alphabetically,” Mr. Finkelstein announces, “but since you already volunteered yourself, Archie, why don’t I go ahead and pair you up with Forsythe here. He was in my class last year, and he’s repeating the year like you. Maybe he can fill you in on what you might’ve missed.”

Jughead feels himself break out into a cold sweat. Mr. Finkelstein is mostly chill (for a high school teacher, that is), but Jughead had forgotten how much of an asshole he is about sticking to the official class roster for students’ names. It’s probably just a weird old person thing, he just doesn’t like nicknames or whatever, but Jughead had specifically _asked_ not to be called Forsythe at least twice before, and this shit still happens. Now, like thirty kids he’s never met before in his life will think that’s his name. Fucking great. Happy first day of school.

His brain pretty much shuts off after that point, so he doesn’t even register what’s happening until Archie is standing up, grabbing his backpack, and saying, “Sure, I’ll work with _Jughead_ ,” pointedly using his actual name. Mr. Finkelstein doesn’t seem to notice. Jughead just stares at Archie, so weirded out by the series of events that he forgets to be annoyed with him. Archie sets his bag down on the desk next to Jughead’s and sits down. Jughead realizes he’s still staring at Archie and looks away quickly, staring down at his own desk instead.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, just loud enough for Archie to hear.

Archie’s chair scrapes obnoxiously on the floor as he scoots it closer to his desk, moving it a few inches at a time in a useless attempt to be quieter. Jughead can’t even find it in himself to be annoyed by the sound; he just stares down at his paper so Archie won’t notice him smiling.

* * *

It turns out that Archie is actually not all that bad at chemistry. Jughead’s used to group projects working exactly one way: he does all the work, and either tries and fails to get the other group members to participate, or he just gives up altogether. He’d figured he’d have to do the same with Archie, so when they set up for their first real lab during the second week of class, Jughead grabs all the equipment and sets it out on the table, zeroing the scale and checking that they have all the chemicals they’re supposed to. He starts measuring and taking notes on his own worksheet, assuming that Archie would copy off his paper at the end of class, but after about a minute of watching Jughead conduct the experiment silently, Archie speaks up.

“Can I, like, help?”

Jughead is caught off-guard.

“Oh, sure. Sorry.” He quickly shoves a beaker and a couple of bottles toward Archie without looking at the labels. Archie picks each one up, carefully examining the labels and starting to fill out his worksheet.

They work together in silence for a few minutes. Jughead spends the entire time berating himself for thinking Archie wouldn’t want to help, for acting like the kids he knows Archie _hates_ – the ones who talk over him, or groan when he gets put in their group for a project. Archie’s told him about it before, how his elementary-school reputation for being “the dumb kid” never left, even when Archie had figured out that he wasn’t stupid, he was dyslexic. Even when he’d started working himself twice as hard as everyone else just so he could do equally well on standardized tests, and in a curriculum based on sitting-down-and-shutting-up, which Archie’s brain just wasn’t wired to do. Jughead had never wanted to treat Archie that way, too – he’d never meant to, either; it was just a byproduct of years of disappointing group projects, but he knew how Archie might’ve interpreted it.

They split up the experiment tasks between themselves and end up finishing the worksheet before the rest of the class, thanks to the fact that they don’t waste any time actually talking to each other, and the fact that Archie’s surprisingly good at it. When Jughead gets tripped up on the molecular geometry section, Archie explains the difference between trigonal planar and tetrahedral bonds, and even draws little diagrams on Jughead’s paper to demonstrate his point.

Archie finishes his worksheet first and volunteers to clean up their station. Without looking up from where he’s still scribbling on his paper, Jughead hands him a bottle and feels his hand brush Archie’s. He pulls his hand back with a jolt, still not meeting Archie’s eyes, until Archie walks away nonchalantly. Jughead runs his fingers absentmindedly over his knuckles, where the phantom warmth of Archie’s hand still lingers. It’s comforting, somehow, that at least one part of Archie is still the same – he still runs hot, like a fucking space heater, no matter what time of the year it is.

Archie comes back to pick up the rest of their equipment and starts to take it back to the teacher’s desk, but halfway there, he stops and pulls his phone out of his pocket to check the screen. He shuffles back to the table and shoves the armful of supplies at Jughead.

“Veronica’s calling me, I gotta take this,” he says hurriedly, and rushes out the door while their teacher isn’t looking.

Jughead groans. Any warm mushy feelings he might’ve had about accidentally touching Archie’s hand dissolve into mild annoyance as he gathers up the bottles and instruction booklets Archie had more or less scattered across the table.

Archie comes back into the classroom right as everyone is starting to pack their bags and getting ready to leave. He mutters something about Veronica’s newest business venture, and some crisis about investors, before grabbing his own bag and heading out the door.

Something uncomfortable settles in Jughead’s stomach at the realization that Archie and Veronica must still dating, then. But, he thinks, there’s no reason they _shouldn’t_ be dating – the fact that they are doesn’t change anything between himself and Archie, anyways – what was he even upset about? Unsurprisingly, the thought doesn’t make him feel any better, and the knot in his stomach stays there for the rest of the day until the last bell rings.

* * *

During their next chemistry class, Archie’s luck with experiments seems to wear off. He and Jughead are starting another lab activity when he leans in to get a better look at the chemical reaction and when the beaker starts fizzing and spitting chemicals, he doesn’t get out of the way in time, and gets an eyeful of chemical vapor. Jughead looks up right as Archie is recoiling and rubbing his eyes.

“Dude, I told you to wear goggles!” Jughead says, exasperated. “What happened?”

“I was just trying to look at it, I didn’t think it was gonna explode in my freaking eyes!”

Jughead sighs. “I’m gonna tell Mr. Finkelstein before you go blind or something.”

“Go _blind_?” Archie yelps, but Jughead is already too far away to respond.

Mr. Finkelstein rushes over to their table and, ranting under his breath about protective equipment and students trying to huff chemicals, directs Archie to the eye wash station in the corner. Jughead watches in embarrassment (and maybe a little schadenfreude) as the entire class turns to stare at Archie. He can’t really blame them; he’s kind of always wanted to see someone use the weird eye wash sink too.

Mr. Finkelstein watches Archie as well, shaking his head slightly. After a minute, he turns to Jughead.

“The chemicals he got in his eyes won’t do any permanent damage, _luckily for him_ , but he should still go to the nurse’s office. Can you go with him?”

Jughead nods.

“I know you’ve taken the class before,” Mr. Finkelstein continues, “and I just don’t want any of the other students to have to miss the lesson. If I recall correctly, you got an A in this class last year – well, in the first quarter, at least, so I don’t think it’ll do any great disservice to your education to miss one class.”

Jughead is relieved that Mr. Finkelstein doesn’t ask any questions about his mysterious disappearance for most of senior year, and finds himself a little pleased that he has a reputation as a good student, despite the fact that he’d missed most of the year for one reason or another. His other teachers had all been a little more suspicious about his absences, and frankly, he’d rather just do his work quietly and get through the year than have to tell every single the story of how his prep school classmates had tried to murder him.

“Sure, I can take him,” he replies.

Mr. Finkelstein hands Archie a wad of paper towels for his now-soaked shirt, and Jughead leads him out of the room.

Jughead shoves his hands in his pockets and marches down the hallway towards the nurse’s office. He’d rather just get this over with as soon as possible, with as little interaction as possible, but he can’t help noticing when Archie’s footsteps start to fall behind. He turns around to see Archie standing a few steps behind him, wiping his eyes with the hem of his shirt.

“Mr. Finkelstein said don’t touch your eyes.”

“I _know_ ,” Archie replies. “But it looks like I’m crying. I don’t want to look like I’ve been crying.”

“You do not,” Jughead lies. “They’re watering ‘cause you pretty much just poured _chemicals_ in them. And who cares, anyways? No one’s gonna see, but even if they did, it’s not like they’d revoke your football-god status just because you, like, cried in the chemistry wing once. Wouldn’t be the first time someone’s done it,” he adds, thinking about all the finals-related breakdowns he’s witnessed over the years.

Archie rolls his eyes dramatically enough that Jughead can actually see him it from twenty feet away, and speed-walks right past Jughead without even acknowledging him on the way to the nurse’s office. _Asshole_. Jughead starts down the hallway after him, but he doesn’t care enough to bother walking that fast. Let Archie walk into a wall or something ‘cause he can’t see, maybe he’ll learn something about the world.

He walks into the nurse’s office to find Archie already seated in a chair in the corner. The nurse’s aide sitting at the desk near the door clears her throat.

“What can I help you with, sweetie?”

Jughead jumps a little, startled. “Oh. Sorry. I’m just…with him,” he says, pointing at Archie, who is currently staring off into space.

The nurse looks at him expectantly.

“Uh, Mr. Finkelstein sent me,” he continues, “because he got something in his eye and couldn’t see that well at first and he didn’t want him to fall down the stairs or something.”

The nurse’s aide laughs softly. “Okay then. Go ahead and have a seat.”

Jughead sits down two chairs to the right of Archie, so they’re separated by a seat, and leans back against the wall.

He should’ve brought a book or something. The nurse doesn’t look like she’s going to be done any time soon – she’s in her office, talking to a red-faced, crying student, and he can faintly hear their conversation through the glass separating the office from the waiting room.

“Ashley, if you knew you were allergic to octopus, why did you eat Kendall’s sushi?”

“I didn’t,” the student – Ashley – sniffles. “I didn’t think it had octopus in it, I thought it was just, like, salmon or something!”

 _Jesus Christ_. For a second, Jughead misses Southside High, literally just because he never had to hear conversations like that.

He and Archie sit in near-silence – Archie’s tapping his foot, a telltale sign that he’s nervous. The sound doesn’t bother Jughead, though; he’s used to it, and he’d learned how to tune it out a long time ago. The way they’re sitting – one seat apart, Archie fidgeting and waiting to get called into the office – suddenly reminds Jughead of the first time they’d met, and before he can stop himself from getting all nostalgic, he starts replaying the incident in his head.

* * *

During recess in elementary, Jughead usually stayed off to the side of the playground; he preferred reading whichever book he was currently obsessed with to running around and getting all sweaty. Today, though, a couple of the sporty kids had invited him to play soccer with them. He had no idea why, but he joined them, figuring his parents would be happy if he made a friend or two. 

He’d figured out why pretty quick. The bigger kids in the class must’ve been bored – bored, and entitled, and in need of a new punching bag, and Jughead clearly stuck out, a combination of odd and antisocial that weirded other kids out enough to make them instinctively dislike him. He was used to kids trying out new insults and swear words on him during class, but he still didn’t get what had taught them to establish their popularity by beating on the weird kid.

At that moment, a pair of size-five Skechers was laying into him like he was a soccer ball, and Jughead knew it was going to leave some bruises from hell all over his ribs. He could practically feel the blood vessels under his skin bursting in protest.

And then, just as quick as it had started, it stopped.

There was a thud – he couldn’t see what had happened, but it sounded like skin on skin – and then a louder, duller thud as a body hit the grass next to him. Jughead uncovered his face carefully, lifting one of his arms to look up, and standing above him was a redheaded kid from his class. He had some weird name, Jughead remembered: Archibald, or something like that.

He was blocking out the sun, and the way it lit up his hair made it look like he was on fire. Archibald-or-something stuck out a hand to pull him up, and Jughead grabbed it, eager to get the hell out of there. He stood up and paused for a second, bracing his hands on his knees and trying to catch his breath. Jughead looked over at Archibald-or-something and followed his gaze to where the kid who’d been beating on him was laid out cold on the ground. Archibald-or-something was clenching and unclenching his fist, wincing a little every time he moved it.

“Did you punch him?” Jughead asked, bewildered.

“Yeah. Serves him right.” He smiled, revealing a missing front tooth. Jughead had lost the same one a few days before. 

“Oh,” Jughead said, for lack of a better response. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!” He bent down and picked something up off the ground before handing it to Jughead. “This is your hat, right?”

Jughead took it from him carefully, brushing the dirt off before pulling it over his head. 

“Yeah. Thanks.” 

They stood there in silence for a minute or two before Archibald-or-something asked, “You don’t say much, huh?”

“I guess not,” Jughead replied. It wasn’t like he had anyone to say much to.

“That’s okay.” He stuck out his un-injured hand. “My name is Archie.” Jughead shook it, still a little bewildered by the events of the last five minutes.

“I’m Jughead.” 

“Cool.” If Archie had thought Jughead’s name was weird, he didn’t acknowledge it.

When their teacher called them back inside for lunch, she’d seen Jughead’s face and demanded to know what had happened. Archie told her everything, and she’d sent the kid who kicked Jughead to the nurse’s office, and told Jughead and Archie to go to the principal’s office.

The secretary glared at them when they walked in.

“Fighting?” she asked, more of a statement than a question.

“Yeah, I guess,” Archie said, and plopped down in one of the hard plastic chairs in the waiting area. Jughead just shrugged and sat down next to him.

They waited silently for the principal to call them in. Jughead hoped they’d just get yelled at and then get sent back to class, because he didn’t think his parents would be able to come pick him up if he had to go home early.

Archie seemed weirdly calm, just kicking his legs back and forth. Calm enough, apparently, to open up his lunchbox and start eating. It was kind of funny, actually, watching him peel an orange after he'd knocked someone out cold twenty minutes earlier with the same hand. Jughead watched him absentmindedly, trying to ignore the aching pain in his chest.

Archie broke the orange in two and held out half to Jughead. “Want an orange?”

“Okay.” Jughead took it from him, and they ate in comfortable silence for a few minutes until the principal opened his door and asked them to come in. 

Luckily, they hadn’t gotten suspended, but they were asked to go home for the rest of the day.

“Maybe get some ice for that, too,” the principal had said, grimacing at the bruises starting to form on Jughead’s arms and the muddy sneaker prints still visible on his t-shirt. “Or a doctor.”

The nurse watched as Jughead called the home phone, but sure enough, neither parent was home, and he had to tell her that _no_ , he didn’t know where else he could reach them.

Archie had called his dad after that, and without any input from Jughead, asked if his dad could give Jughead a ride. The nurse seemed relieved to pass Jughead off onto someone else – this wasn’t the first time she’d had to handle Jughead’s _social difficulties_ – and so Jughead got in the car with Archie’s dad – Fred – who seemed like a weirdly normal but overall pretty nice guy.

Jughead had offered to walk home from wherever their house was, so Fred wouldn’t have to drive him all the way, but Fred insisted on dropping him off at home so he wouldn’t have to walk “in his condition”.

When he’d told Fred his address, he’d smiled. “You’re practically right down the street, then.” Nudging Archie, he added: “Maybe you can invite Jughead over sometime. Get to know some of the other kids in the neighborhood.”

Archie smiled in the wide, gap-toothed way Jughead found himself getting used to. 

“Cool! Wanna come over right now?” 

Before Jughead could respond, Fred added: “Looks like you might need some ice for those bruises, Jughead. Is there someone at home who can help you with that?”

 _I can get an ice pack by myself,_ Jughead thought, but the thought of having an adult there, just to make sure he was okay, did make him feel less nervous about his injuries. 

“Um. Not right now. My parents are at work.” 

Archie’s dad kept his gaze fixed on the road. “Do you want to stop in at our house for a little bit, then? Just until your folks get home?” 

“Okay,” Jughead said. “Do you have mac ‘n cheese? I’m kinda hungry.”

Archie’s dad laughed, and then Archie laughed, and Jughead joined in, too.

As the year went on, Jughead had started hanging out at Archie’s house more after school, and then on weekends, and then sleeping over, too.

Pretty soon, Archie had started calling him his _best friend_. Jughead had never had a best friend before, but he was pretty sure Archie was his, too, and that’s what had gotten him into this whole mess.

* * *

Jughead shifts uncomfortably in the chair, waiting for the nurse to finish lecturing Archie about the importance of wearing goggles and not leaning directly over beakers of chemicals. She gives him two ice packs and sends them both on their way.

Outside the office, Archie looks down at the ice packs in his hands. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Put them on your eyes, I think.”

“Yeah, no shit,” Archie snorts. “But what am I supposed to do, just sit in class like this?” He holds the ice packs up over his eyes and, yeah, Jughead sees his point. _“Too busy blockin’ out the haters,”_ offers a part of his brain, and he has to hold his breath to keep himself from laughing so Archie doesn’t think he’s laughing at his pain or something.

Archie ends up driving himself home, because they’re 18 and they can do that now, and Jughead spends the rest of the day feeling a little relieved without the constant pressure of impending awkward conversations with him, but mostly bored.

It turns out that, even though he wouldn’t say he actually _enjoys_ Archie’s presence in his classes, Jughead’s classes are admittedly way more interesting when he can spend them staring at the back of Archie’s head and getting vaguely annoyed by everything he does.

* * *

In October, a stomach bug starts going around school, and Jughead catches it – only for a day, luckily, but he knows he’ll still have a pile of homework to catch up on when he goes back. He spends the day sleeping in until 4 p.m., eating lunch, and finally getting started on the homework he was _supposed_ to do yesterday around six.

He’s in the middle of reading a chapter of _Beloved_ for English class when his phone rings.

He jumps at the sudden noise. He’d completely forgotten what his ringtone actually sounded like; no one ever actually _calls_ him – unless it’s an emergency – but the number is listed as Unknown, so he figures it’s just a spam call. He picks up the phone and doesn’t say anything, just waits for the recording about car insurance or whatever to start up.

After a few seconds of silence, a familiar voice says, “Hello? Jughead?”

Archie’s voice through the phone is tinny and pitchy, but it’s unmistakably him. Jughead looks at his phone again, squinting at the word “Unknown” on the screen. He remembers, then, that he’d deleted Archie’s phone number from his contacts a few months back, after they’d gone without talking for so long that Jughead had figured things were over for good.

Archie must have kept his phone number, then.

He brings the phone up to his ear again. “Archie?”

“Jug? Hey, you freaked me out for a second.”

“Sorry, I…thought it was a spam call or something. Didn’t want the robot to register me as an actual person they can advertise to.” Jughead is surprised by how normal his voice sounds, like this is just a regular night, and this is a regular year, and Archie’s just calling him to talk about his day – not at all like it’s the first real conversation he’s had in months with the person who used to be his best friend.

Archie laughs. “It’s all good.” He goes quiet for a second, and Jughead waits for him to actually explain why he’s calling.

“So,” Archie starts. “I was just gonna ask if you had the page numbers for the math homework. I was out sick today, and I don’t want to get, like, slapped with fifty pages of calculus problems in one night when I go back tomorrow.”

“Actually, I was sick today, too. Got that stomach bug that’s been going around, so I don’t know anything about the homework, sorry. I’m kind of dreading it tomorrow, too.”

“Yeah. So much for senior year being an easy ride,” Archie groans.

“Yeah, seriously.” Jughead sits up and sets his book down on the coffee table before settling back into the couch. “As if I needed _another_ reason to almost fail calculus,” he says.

“Same,” Archie agrees. “It’s my second time taking it and I still don’t know what the hell’s going on.”

“Me either,” Jughead agrees, shaking his head. “It’s been a real blow to my ego.”

Jughead thinks he can hear Archie smiling as he says, “Yeah, that’s gotta be a first.”

Jughead laughs, surprising himself. “Hey! That was a joke. I don’t have an ego.”

“Sure, whatever you say.”

Some small part of Jughead’s brain is aware that this conversation – the fact that they’re talking to each other like nothing has changed – is very weird, but he decides not to pay attention to it, and changes the topic instead.

“Do you know anyone else in our class who might have the homework? I don’t really talk to any of them. You know, ‘hell is other people’ and all that stuff.”

Archie sighs. “Nope. I miss having Betty and Veronica in all our classes. They were always on top of their shit. I don’t think Betty was absent once in all of high school.”

“Actually, I think you’re right,” Jughead replies. “Maybe she’s immune to it. Actually, maybe her mom was just so intimidating that any virus, like, turned around and left as soon as it entered the Cooper house.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised. She kinda scares the crap out of me.”

The line is quiet for a few seconds. The conversation feels surprisingly comfortable, despite all the reasons it should be anything but. Having exhausted their only common ground – school – they don’t really have anything left to talk about, but Jughead can sense that Archie doesn’t want to hang up, and if he’s being honest with himself, neither does he. He can’t remember the last time he had a regular conversation with a friend – or whatever he and Archie are now – and he’s been lonely.

“Betty’s off at college now, right?” Archie asks. Jughead knows Archie’s well aware that she is at college, but the transparent attempt at keeping the conversation going is kind of endearing.

“Yeah, she is.”

Jughead thinks for a second, trying to figure out exactly how much information he wants to share right now, and decides _fuck it_ , if Archie’s going to act like they’re friends again, so will he.

“We broke up a little while ago, actually, before she left for college. It was mutual, we’re still friends,” he continues, before Archie starts to feel bad for him or anything. “It just felt like it was going to happen eventually, I guess. And I wanted her to be able to have all those typical college experiences without me weighing her down.”

“Yeah,” Archie says. “Yeah, I get that. Ronnie’s in college now, too. We’re still dating, though, trying to do the whole long-distance thing.”

Jughead had figured they were still dating, but hearing it from Archie is still discouraging for a reason he can’t exactly pinpoint. Maybe it’s because he thinks that if Archie and Veronica are making a long-distance relationship work, he should’ve tried to make it work with Betty, but that doesn’t seem like it. He files that thought away for later.

“How’s that going? The long-distance relationship, I mean.”

“It’s…” Archie trails off. “It’s been okay. Weird, mostly. We still call, and we Skype sometimes, but it’s weird not being in the same place. I mean, we’re not even in the same state anymore.” He pauses, then continues. “Plus, there’s some stuff you just can’t do long-distance. I mean, Veronica has her own room, but we still can’t—”

“Okay,” Jughead cuts in. “That’s enough information, thank you!”

Archie and Veronica had always tended to make their sex life rather public, so Jughead isn’t exactly surprised that Archie’s still oversharing about it, even though their interactions are now probably limited to sexy Skype calls – which Jughead would very much rather _not_ think about.

Archie laughs. “Well. Yeah. Anyways, yeah, it’s okay. It’s not the same, but…hopefully things will be better when she comes home for break, and we can be together in person again.”

Jughead makes a quiet, vaguely affirmative noise.

Somehow, he and Archie keep the conversation going for what feels like hours, just like they always used to. He’s surprised, again and again, by how natural the conversation is. They don’t run out of topics to talk about – which shouldn’t be _that_ surprising, he figures, considering that they haven’t really talked in almost a year.

Eventually, the sun goes down completely, and Jughead realizes he should get up to turn on a light. He tucks the phone against his shoulder as he shuts the blinds and flicks the floor lamp on, not wanting to walk away from the conversation – especially once Archie mentions their chemistry teacher, and Jughead gets the chance to finally tell Archie some of the bizarre stories he has about him.

“Mr. Finkelstein is a trip. One time he called this kid Jared a _simpleton_. Who the fuck says that?” Jughead wheezes, laughing at the memory of their short, round, mild-mannered chemistry teacher going the fuck off on a student because apparently, Jared couldn't read the instructions and had tried to sniff the chemicals. (Or, Jughead realizes, maybe Jared had done it on purpose. He can't really blame the kid for wanting to make the class a little more interesting.)

Archie laughs. “I dunno. At least he’s not Mr. Waters, though. I had him last year. He was so fucking weird.”

“Well, yeah,” Jughead replies. “He’s an alien.”

“Huh?” 

“He’s an alien,” Jughead repeats.

“No, I heard what you said, but what?” 

Jughead shrugs, then realizes Archie can’t see it through the phone. “That’s all I know. Fangs told me.”

“Okay, then.” Archie sounds like he can’t figure out whether he should laugh or not.

After a brief, surprisingly comfortable silence, Archie asks: “How is he? All of them, I mean. How’re they doing?”

“The Serpents?” Jughead asks, surprised Archie actually gives a shit about them.

“Yeah.”

“Um, good, I think. Yeah. Fangs is at the University of Pittsburgh – he wanted to go to school near Kevin, and he got a scholarship there – and Sweet Pea and Toni are both living up in Greendale, going to Greendale Community.” 

“Oh, okay. Cool. I looked at Greendale for a little bit, thought about taking some classes there before I decided to repeat the year. They have a pretty good music production program.”

“Yeah, it sounds pretty good. I don’t hear much from them, though,” Jughead says.

“Why not?”

“Well, everyone’s just busy with all their own stuff, you know. Work, and school, and new living situations and stuff. They don’t have all that much time to talk. I think they’re all having a good time, though. I’m happy for them.” Jughead realizes the conversation has gotten more personal than he originally intended, but it’s not entirely unwelcome. Archie seems actually interested in hearing about his life.

“What about Betty? How’s college going for her?” Archie asks.

Jughead laughs. “She's having a great time. I always knew she would. I think her classes are kinda killing her, but it still seems like the right environment for her. You know she and Veronica actually ended up going to the same college?” He adds.

“Yeah, Veronica told me that,” Archie replies. “How weird is that?”

“So weird,” Jughead agrees, shaking his head. 

The line goes quiet. Jughead tries to come up with something to say, but he can’t think of anything to talk about that doesn’t have to do with the elephant in the room – their relationship, and everything that had happened between them over the last year. The conversation has been comfortable so far, and he doesn’t want to ruin the moment by bringing it up.

Thankfully, Archie speaks up first, sounding unusually quiet.

“Do you want to meet up at Pop’s tomorrow? Like, after school or something, to go over the work we missed?” He pauses, then adds, “I also kinda want to talk to you about something.”

Jughead feels his heartbeat jumpstart, hammering away in a rush of adrenaline. He clears his throat, and switches his phone to his other hand, wiping his suddenly sweaty hand on his shirt.

“Sure,” he says, try to toe the line between sounding too excited or too apathetic. “That sounds good. I don’t have anything going on, like, ever, so whenever you’re free.”

“Cool,” Archie replies, sounding a little more confident. “How about tomorrow at, like, six?”

“Cool,” Jughead repeats. “I’ll see you then, I guess? Well, I’ll see you in class first. You know what I mean.”

Archie laughs softly. “Yeah, I know. See ya then,” he says. There’s a few seconds of silence, then a _beep_ as Archie hangs up.

The sudden adrenaline spike from Archie wanting to “talk to him about something” leaves Jughead restless and unable to sleep, so he decides to go for a walk. It’s a little chilly out, but still temperate enough (thanks to Riverdale’s disgustingly hot summers) that he can throw on a hoodie and be warm enough.

He wanders around town, not heading anywhere in particular, following vaguely the same route he used to take in the summer. He zones out and doesn’t realize how far he’s gotten until he’s standing under the bright neon light of Pop’s, on the border of the Northside. He always feels a little weird walking around Northside neighborhoods – despite the fact that he still goes to school in the Northside – so he decides to make one quick stop, then head back.

He crosses over to Elm Street and walks down the same route he’s taken countless times. He could do it with his eyes closed and still know exactly when to stop walking so he’ll end up right in front of Archie’s house. He doesn’t want to look like a creep, so he walks down the other side of the street, just in case Fred or Archie happen to glance out the window.

The Andrews’ have already decorated for Halloween; Jughead recognizes the tattered ghost decorations hanging from the trees, and the fake gravestones in the front yard. This year, they’ve replaced the light out front with a green lightbulb, too. Jughead keeps walking down the street, and glances once more over his shoulder at the green light glowing from the Andrews’ porch before heading home.

* * *

The next evening, when Jughead gets to Pop’s, Archie’s already seated in one of the booths – Jughead’s favorite booth, in fact, the one in the back corner. He sits down across from Archie and notices the cup of coffee in front of him.

“You drink coffee now?” Jughead asks, smiling.

“Hell no,” Archie laughs. “I still hate coffee. That’s for you. Black, right?”

Jughead nods. “Yeah, that’s my usual. Thanks,” he says, testing the temperature of the mug before taking a sip.

“No problem.” Archie glances around the diner, not really looking at anything in particular. “So,” he starts.

“So,” Jughead repeats.

“I brought my backpack, so we can study,” Archie says, gesturing next to him on the seat. “But I wanted to tell you something first.”

Jughead’s heartbeat kicks into gear again. He starts fidgeting with the hem of his hoodie, pretending to be very interested in the stitching so he doesn’t have to meet Archie’s eyes.

Archie’s voice gets quiet again, the same way it had during their conversation the day before. "So, I started...seeing someone, a couple months ago. A therapist."

Well, that’s wasn’t what Jughead was expecting to hear, but he’s pleasantly surprised.

"I didn't think there was anything I needed to go to therapy for, but my dad said I should just try it, just to see how it goes. And I just kind of started talking, and stuff came out that I didn't realize I was still thinking about, and...yeah." He pauses.

"That's great, Arch. Has it been...like, helping?" Jughead cringes internally. He doesn't really know how to ask about this kind of thing.

“Yeah, it has. Things kinda got worse before they started to get better, but talking to someone about it helps me feel less…insane. Like, now I kind of understand why I’ve been acting the way I have, and why I have the thoughts I do.”

 _That’s vague_ , Jughead thinks.

Archie continues. “And one of the things I talked about with her was you. Well, us. And I wanted to say that I’m sorry.”

Jughead finally meets Archie’s eyes and nods silently, hoping Archie has more to say about that, because after everything that happened between them, he’d like a little more of an explanation.

Archie takes a deep breath.

“When my dad got…shot, a couple years ago, it really messed me up. I don’t think I realized it back then, but it kind of changed everything for me. I knew Riverdale was messed up before then, I mean, after everything that happened with Jason. But then…that happened in Pop’s, to my _dad_ , and it was like nothing was safe anymore. I mean, my dad was _always_ there no matter what, he was always my voice of reason. He always protected me – he _did_ protect me. And I couldn’t do the same for him.”

His voice cracks a little, and he takes another deep, shaky breath. “And I kind of freaked out. I was up all night, every night, just sitting in my hallway with a baseball bat, waiting for the Black Hood to come back and try to hurt my family again, so I could do things right that time. But it still didn’t fix things. It just…felt like everything was closing in around me, and everything was changing, and I didn’t have a say in any of it. Like Riverdale just _changed_ overnight.”

Archie looks up to meet Jughead’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Jughead says softly. “I get it.”

“And then…Mr. Lodge gave me this chance to have something I’d never had before. Something I’d wanted, so badly, ever since my dad got hurt – he gave me the chance to control my own life again, to be part of the force that was changing Riverdale. I thought he was trying to change things for the better. I mean, I trusted him. And everything I’d been doing before, everything that I knew how to do to help people – it wasn’t working anymore, and suddenly this whole world opened up that I’d never seen before, where the stakes were bigger than Riverdale. Way bigger. And eventually, he pretty much made me choose between him and my dad. And that’s…one of the things I regret the most. That I chose Mr. Lodge over my own _dad_.”

Archie pauses.

“Why did you?” Jughead asks.

“I guess it felt like…I don’t know. Like my dad was just doing the same old thing as always – like he wouldn’t acknowledge that things were different. I thought he was so naïve for still thinking that there was hope for Riverdale, for pretending like things could get better if we just believed hard enough. And I thought Mr. Lodge was actually trying to _change_ things. And I was so… _scared_ of everything that was happening in Riverdale that I just said yes, ‘cause I actually thought I was gonna be able to be part of the force protecting Riverdale, but…that’s not actually what he cared about.”

Jughead grimaces. “Yeah.”

Archie starts to say something, but he stops himself when Pop walks up to their table with a pot of coffee and refills Jughead’s mug.

“Thanks, Pop,” Jughead says appreciatively.

Pop smiles down at him. “It’s been a while since I saw the two of you in here.”

Jughead laughs, looking down at his hands. “Yeah. It has been.”

“It’s good to see you again – both of you,” Pop replies knowingly, and walks away.

Jughead looks up at Archie, who smiles back at him.

“Anyways. You were saying?” Jughead says.

“Yeah. Well, you know the rest. You were there for it. But I never meant any of that to happen. I just got so far in over my head, and I didn’t know how to stop it, and I didn’t want to ruin things with Veronica or her dad, and I was just…stuck. I was scared to keep doing what Mr. Lodge wanted, but I was more scared to tell him _no_. He made it kinda obvious how he felt about people who betrayed him, and I didn’t want to end up like Papa Poutine.”

Jughead can’t help laughing at the name. “Jesus,” he says, wiping a hand over his face. “Sorry. Keep going.”

“It’s okay,” Archie says, smiling half-heartedly. “I know, it’s weird. But, yeah, things kind of just kept going. Kept getting worse. And I kept making choices that I thought were gonna make things better, but first it was between Mr. Lodge and my dad, and then it was between Mr. Lodge and the Serpents, and then it was…you. And then everyone else. And I just went along with it,” he says, shaking his head.

“It was stupid,” he continues. “I just wanted to help. I thought the way Mr. Lodge handled things was the only way things were gonna get solved in Riverdale. But everything he did – everything I _helped_ him do – just made things worse and worse for the people I cared about. The people I was trying to protect in the first place. I felt like I was turning into someone I didn’t even know, making decisions I never thought I would make. Including cutting you off. It was wrong to do that.”

Archie pauses and takes a breath, and Jughead shifts in his seat.

“It just felt like you didn’t get it, didn’t get that Mr. Lodge was doing things the _right_ way, but…I know you were just trying to help. And the normal me – the me I was _trying_ to be – would’ve understood that. Would’ve agreed with you. But instead I pushed you away. And I’m sorry.”

Jughead’s throat has gone dry. He blinks hard, his eyes stinging, and tries to gather his thoughts.

“I’m sorry too,” Jughead starts, and Archie’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline.

“I’m sorry I _stopped_ trying. It felt like you’d passed me up for Veronica, or Hiram, so many times, and it reminded me of that summer before sophomore year, and I just…gave up. On you. I knew that wasn’t who you were, Arch, but it felt like the point of no return, like there was nothing I could say to change your mind. I knew he was manipulating you, and I was kind of pissed that you fell for it, and went along with it, but…honestly, I would’ve been scared shitless to turn my back on him if I were you, too. I wish I’d kept trying, but instead I just got bitter and gave up, ‘cause I felt like nothing I did would make a difference.”

Jughead wipes a hand over his eyes. “But you were my best friend. I shouldn’t have just let you go. Shouldn’t have just sat around and watched as you got roped into, like, a Mafia ring.”

Archie laughs weakly.

“I shouldn’t have given up on you,” Jughead adds. “So…I’m sorry too.”

He glances up at Archie nervously, not sure what he’s expecting to find, but Archie looks so _open_. Not mad or confused, but like he actually understands. They sit in silence for a few seconds. Jughead takes another sip of his coffee.

Archie says, so quietly that Jughead can barely hear him: “I missed you.”

Jughead takes a deep breath and meets his eyes again. “I missed you, too.”

After a few seconds, he adds, “There’s been _so_ much stupid stuff I wanted to tell you ‘cause I knew it would make you laugh, but I kept remembering that I couldn’t anymore. And honestly? It was kind of fucking awful,” he laughs, wiping his eyes again.

“Yeah,” Archie says, laughing for real this time, his smile wide and warm. “Yeah, it really was. And…then shit hit the fan, and Hiram tried to shoot my dad, and I…went to prison. And, uh, we kinda parted ways after that. To make a long fuckin’ story short, I guess.”

Jughead makes a face that he hopes conveys an appropriate combination of “yikes” and “I’m sorry, dude”.

Archie glances at him and smiles half-heartedly. “Yeah, that’s pretty much where I’m at with it, too. Like I said, therapy kinda helped me figure this stuff out. Helped me make sense of it, I guess. So I’m not just doing stuff without understanding why, or making decisions without thinking them through first.”

“Finally,” Jughead replies.

“Hey!” Archie reaches across the table to smack his hand, but he can’t pretend to be mad for long. He sits back against the booth, clasping his hands together.

“So, that’s all she wrote, huh?” Jughead asks.

“Yep,” Archie replies. “And since then, it’s just been the summer, and then school. So, things are actually pretty normal for once, now. Maybe for the first time since freshman year.”

“Yeah, it’s gotta be pretty nice not being, like, actively in fear for your life. Sounds exhausting.”

“No kidding,” Archie sighs. “Our lives are so screwed up.”

“Oh, yeah. Majorly. We’re traumatized for life.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Archie says, raising his milkshake. Jughead clinks his empty coffee mug against the glass, then swallows the last of his now-cold coffee.

“Weren’t we supposed to be studying?” Jughead asks after a few seconds.

“Oh yeah.” Archie pulls out a heavy-looking stack of notebooks from his backpack and plops them on the table. “What do you want to start with?”

“Eh, I don’t care.”

“Okay,” Archie says, closing his eyes and grabbing a random one. He opens his eyes and reads out the title. “Physics.”

“Fun,” Jughead deadpans.

They manage to finish most of the work they’d missed the previous day, minus a set of calculus problems that they both agree to give up on. The sun sets while they study, and they end up ordering dinner so they can keep working for a while longer.

By the time they’re ready to leave, the temperature has dropped, and the wind is cold enough to sting Jughead’s face as he steps outside, following Archie through the door. Archie turns around, smiling.

“It’s so cold out!” He cheers.

“Yeah, it is,” Jughead agrees. “It’s horrible. Something’s wrong with you.”

“Maybe,” Archie says, taking off his jacket. “But at least I dressed like it’s fall, unlike you. It’s the one day you don’t wear, like, thirty layers, and _now_ we get a cold front.”

Jughead rolls his eyes and follows Archie over to the truck, pulling his jacket tighter around himself. Archie turns around, balls up his jacket, and tosses it at Jughead. Jughead catches it and looks at Archie questioningly.

“Here,” he says. “Put it on.” Jughead starts to protest, but Archie cuts him off. “You’re freezing your ass off, and I’m not the one who’s walking home. I don’t want your death on my hands if you get frostbite. I’m not going back to prison.”

Jughead snorts. “Jesus Christ. Alright, if you want me to wear it so bad, I will.” He pulls the jacket on, slipping his hands through the sleeves. It’s too big for him – not ridiculously oversized, but the sleeves hang past his fingertips. Archie gives him a once-over and smiles, a small, hesitant smile that Jughead isn’t used to. “This good enough for you?” Jughead asks.

“Yeah, now that I know you’re not gonna freeze.”

“Does the jacket make me look like an asshole?”

“No,” Archie replies. “You already looked like an asshole before you put it on.”

“Okay, bye then,” Jughead calls out dramatically, turning on his heel to walk away.

“Wait!” Archie shouts after him.

Jughead turns around and walks back over to him.

“Yeah?”

Before he can say anything else, Archie closes the distance between them and hugs Jughead so tightly it forces the breath out of his lungs. Jughead reflexively wraps his arms around Archie’s shoulders and holds on, laughing weakly.

“I swear, one of these days you’re gonna crack my spine,” he complains, but still doesn’t loosen his grip. Archie makes a noncommittal noise against his neck, and for some reason, it gives him goosebumps. Eventually, Archie lets go, just barely, and they pull apart.

“Okay,” Archie says. “See ya tomorrow.”

“See ya,” Jughead repeats, a little dazed. He watches Archie drive away, taking a right out of the parking lot into the Northside. Jughead heads in the opposite direction himself, and on the way home, he notices that, somehow, he doesn’t feel nearly as cold anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is quarantine making written depictions of physical contact hit different for anyone else? just me?  
> as always, comment to help me survive quarantine (or just if u enjoyed the fic)! here's to slightly less repression! *holds up a piece of toast*  
> i'm on tumblr at @jugheadsucks!


	4. winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> planning for the future and figuring out the present.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took nearly a month to update, lol. there were obviously more important things going on.   
> (that being said, here is a list of things you can do to support black lives - it's continuously being updated: https://bit.ly/2NtUVPw)
> 
> okay, onto the fic.  
> (suggested listening: "friends" by ed sheeran)

> _But then again, if we're not friends,_
> 
> _Someone else might love you too._
> 
> _And then again, if we're not friends,_
> 
> _There'd be nothing I could do, and that's why_
> 
> _Friends should sleep in other beds._
> 
> _And friends shouldn't kiss me like you do._

In mid-November, Jughead is surprised to realize that he actually really wants to spend more time with Archie. Like, voluntarily. Preferably not in class. He figures Archie would say yes; it seems like Archie’s been trying to hold himself back from getting too close, and Jughead’s finally ready to do what he’d promised – start repairing his friendship with Archie, one meal (at Pop’s) at a time.

They have midterms coming up at the start of December, and that seems like a good enough excuse to invite Archie over.

“I gotta warn you,” Jughead tells Archie as they’re walking up to the trailer. “It doesn’t look great in there. I’ve been doing the best I can on my own, it’s not _gross_ , just…don’t expect the Pembrooke.”

Archie laughs. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t. It’ll be nice to hang out at someone’s house where I don’t have to ask which furniture I can sit on.”

“Huh?” Jughead turns around, halfway through unlocking the door.

“The Lodges.” Archie explains, which doesn’t really explain anything, but also sort of explains everything. “They have, like, decorative furniture,” he adds. “They just keep it in their house and no one’s allowed to sit on it. It’s freaking weird.”

“Jesus. Rich people.” Jughead mutters, but he can’t keep himself from smiling. He’d missed Archie’s not-quite-swear-words.

Finally, Jughead gets the door unlocked, and they both trudge into the living room, dropping their backpacks by the door. Jughead takes his beanie off and runs his hands through his hair, a habit he’s had for years. He notices Archie glancing at him hesitantly, and realizes Archie hasn’t seen him without his hat on in almost a year. Something about it feels weirdly intimate. He pulls the beanie on again and stands up.

“You want anything to eat?”

“Oh,” Archie says, caught off-guard. “Sure, thanks. What do you have?”

“Um…” Jughead opens the pantry and the refrigerator, cataloguing their contents. “Well, we have tortillas and shredded cheese. And that’s kind of it. I was gonna go to the store later.”

“We can make quesadillas,” Archie suggests.

Jughead shrugs. “Fuck it, let’s make quesadillas.” That used to be their go-to snack at Archie’s house in elementary school, mostly because it was the only thing either of them knew how to “cook”.

Jughead is quietly relieved that the Lodges haven’t converted Archie to only eating, like, caviar and steak tartare or whatever it is rich people eat. When the microwave beeps, Jughead brings the plate over to Archie, who’s in the process of laying his most recent calculus notes out on the carpet.

As they start to review Archie’s notes together, Jughead realizes that, ironically, he’s done the most studying of his entire high school life during the one year when he doesn’t have to, since he’s taken all the classes before. He blames Archie for finally turning him into a responsible student.

The study sessions, which Jughead starts calling them in his head, become a more regular occurrence – so regular that Jughead knows neither of them actually _need_ to study any more. They’re both doing well in their classes, and the material isn’t new, so they don’t necessarily have to spend several hours together after school doing homework and reviewing notes, but thankfully, that doesn’t stop Archie from inviting him over.

Sometimes, on the days when Jughead hangs out at Archie’s after school, Fred invites him to stay for dinner. Sitting around the Andrews’ kitchen table with Fred and Archie feels strange at first, the same way it had when he’d gone to Pop’s with Archie back in October. A once-familiar situation occurring for the first time in almost a year.

Just like he had with Archie at Pop’s, though, Jughead falls back into the comfortable rhythm of the Andrews’ household with surprising ease. Halfway through dinner, joking with Fred and laughing with his mouth full, he realizes how much he’s missed family meals. Since the Serpents all went their separate ways for college (and his dad is on a steady diet of prison food), he’s been eating by himself for months. It’s not that he doesn’t like being alone, but he’d forgotten how comforting it is to feel like part of a family.

As winter break gets closer, the other Riverdale High seniors start getting their college acceptance letters in the mail, and Jughead and Archie are no exception.

They’d both decided early on what they wanted to do after high school, mostly because applying to a bunch of different schools is insanely expensive, but they celebrate the announcements nonetheless. The letters are a promise that, after all the hell they’ve been through, they _will_ have a future. Jughead picked out a nearby state school, Rockland County College, which had offered him a substantial scholarship, and is only a twenty minute drive from Riverdale.

He goes to see his dad in person to tell him the news, and based on FP’s reaction, Jughead thinks his dad might be even happier about it than he is.

When he finishes explaining the terms of his scholarship and his plans to live in the campus dorms, FP slams his hand on the table and shouts, “My boy’s going to college!”

The guard in the corner of the room gives FP a cautionary look, and FP shakes his head before returning the phone to his ear.

“That’s great, Jug. You oughta be proud of yourself, boy, you worked your ass off to get where you are. You know that, don’t you?”

Jughead smiles down at his hands. For all that he’d been looking forward to his dad’s response, he still has trouble accepting compliments.

“Yeah,” he says softly.

“I can’t hear you,” FP chides him.

“Yes,” Jughead says in a slightly louder voice. He laughs quietly, shaking his head.

“I’m serious,” FP adds. “I know you haven’t had…the easiest go of things. And I know all about the kind of shit Riverdale High tells kids like you. Told me that, too, when I went there. And you proved ‘em all wrong.” Jughead is surprised by the fierceness in his dad’s voice. He looks up, finally meeting his dad’s eyes. “That’ll teach ‘em to underestimate kids from the Southside, huh?”

“I can only hope,” Jughead replies, thinking of Sweet Pea and Toni and Fangs and all the other Southside kids who’d been chewed up and spit out by the same system as him. Except they’d all spent their entire lives dealing with that shit. And not all of them got the same chances he did: to go to the rich-kid school, and to spend an extra year repeating high school instead of starting full-time work straight out of high school (or working nearly full-time while he was still _in_ school, like Toni had).

He doesn’t know how to fix that. He _can’t_ fix it. He promises them, in his head, that he’ll figure out some way to help kids like him and the other Serpents. Someday.

Archie’s got his plans for the foreseeable future all worked out, too. He describes his plans to Jughead one day while they’re both sitting in Archie’s bed, hanging out after school under the pretense of studying, as per usual. Archie tells him that in the fall, he’ll start taking classes at Greendale Community that fall. (Jughead is secretly relieved that Archie won’t be too far away, but he doesn’t mention it). Archie wants to study music, and maybe business, too, which makes Jughead groan, and Archie says _I know, I know,_ and clarifies that he really only wants to learn about nonprofit management.

Archie adds, even more excitedly, that he’d been accepted to work with an organization in Greendale that helps kids who’ve been released from juvenile detention. They have a little community center that does case management and teaches classes where kids can learn healthy coping mechanisms and anger management skills and stuff like that. It’s clearly perfect for Archie, and he talks about it with a kind of lit-up enthusiasm that Jughead hasn’t seen from him in a long time.

Archie mentions that the community center also has group sessions where kids can learn about abuse and PTSD and other therapy stuff, so they can better understand some of what they might be dealing with after leaving juvie.

“That’s how I found out about it, actually,” Archie explains. “I was just looking things up, trying to find something that might help _me_ with that, I guess, and their website came up. They teach kids how to feel…autonomous, like they can control their bodies, by doing stuff like exercising. I didn’t put it together before then, but I think that’s probably why I got so into boxing. I guess I wasn’t ready to actually deal with the actual issues then, but I think I am now.”

Jughead nods. “What’s the group called again?”

Archie tells him, and Jughead quickly opens up the notes app, writes down the name, and labels it “to do”.

“They might even let me teach guitar there,” Archie adds. “They partner with Greendale’s public school district to use some of the school equipment – like, gym class stuff – and they said they might be able to borrow instruments from the music department, too.”

Jughead looks up from his phone and smiles. “That’s awesome, Arch. It sounds perfect for you.”

“It is,” Archie agrees. “It seriously is. I can’t believe something like that exists around here.”

Archie grins back at him, and it’s the most genuine one Jughead’s seen in a long time. Even now, Archie’s smile has a way of knocking the wind out of him. It’s like a spotlight, bright and warm and almost overwhelming, and it always makes some part of Jughead wonder whether he deserves it.

“I missed seeing you smile,” Jughead says, before he can stop himself.

Archie keeps smiling, shyer now. “Yeah, well. I’m really looking forward to this. It feels like I actually know what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m actually _doing_ it, for the first time. Ever.”

Jughead nods. “You deserve it,” he says, his tone soft but serious.

The silence between them is surprisingly comfortable. Companionable. It shouldn’t be _that_ weird, Jughead figures, that they’re already comfortable around each other again, but it still catches him off guard. He used to think they’d never be able to repair things; he’d given up hoping that they could ever even be _friends_ again, much less that they could be…well, anything _else._ Which they very much aren’t. But the time he’s been spending with Archie has him slipping down a familiar slope.

He wishes he could just get his shit together and accept the fact that he and Archie will probably always be _just friends_ , but he can’t let go of that stubborn hope out of the back of his head. He’s been holding onto it for longer than he can remember – the hope that _maybe he feels the same way too_ and _maybe it could work_. He carefully sets that train of thought aside for now, so he and Archie can pick up their usual routine of pretending to be interested in the intricacies of macroeconomic theory or something equally dull.

He and Archie had stayed up late (by Jughead’s standards, which is saying something) on a phone call the previous night, and the combination of sleep deprivation and the incredibly boring textbook has Jughead yawning every few minutes.

Jughead props his head up with his hand and tries to focus on the book in front of him, but it doesn’t take long for his attention to drift. He doesn’t even realize he’d fallen asleep until the sound of a pencil hitting the floor jolts him awake He looks over at Archie, who is now passed out asleep with his notes spread out across the pillows and his face planted directly in his textbook.

It takes approximately half a second for Jughead to give up the ghost and follow Archie’s example. He closes his book and sets it on the floor, and then carefully pulls Archie’s book out from under his face and puts it on top of the pile. Archie has always slept like a rock, and he doesn’t even stir when Jughead takes the other pillow on the side closest to the wall. It used to be his usual spot, back when sleepovers and sharing a bed were normal for them.

He debates taking his hat off for a second, but decides against it. It feels weird taking a nap in jeans, and even weirder that he’s taking a nap in jeans _in Archie’s bed_ , but he’s tired as fuck, and Archie’s bed is ridiculously comfortable, and he’s asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

When Jughead wakes up, he’s warm as hell. Almost overheating. It doesn’t make sense at first, but then he regains his senses and realizes that, first of all, he’s wedged in the corner of the bed next to the wall, and second of all, that Archie is practically spooning him. Well, not spooning him exactly, but they’re both lying on their sides, close enough that Archie’s chest is only a few inches away from Jughead’s back. Which would explain Jughead’s sudden sense of being in a sauna. Even in the dead of winter, Archie radiates warmth like he’s got a deadly fever.

Jughead shifts slightly, just enough so he can breathe, and glances over to see that Archie is still out cold. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, squinting at the clock with bleary eyes. 7:32. They slept for almost three hours. He’s actually kind of impressed.

He knows he should probably get up, should probably wake Archie up, too, but it’s been a long time since he woke up in Archie’s bed, and his bed only seems to have gotten more comfortable over the years. He looks through his notifications: there are a few texts from Betty, and Fangs apparently spammed the Serpents group chat with incomprehensible memes while Jughead was asleep. He turns over to lie on his back, trying not to jostle Archie too much, and scrolls through his phone until Archie wakes up.

He finally does, more than half an hour later, and looks up at Jughead, blinking and looking disoriented.

“Good morning,” Jughead says, trying to stifle a laugh.

Archie looks around the room slowly. “Good morning,” he mumbles. “What time is it?”

Jughead checks his phone. “Eight.”

“In the morning?”

Jughead laughs. “No. At night. We took a nap. Well, _you_ took a nap, on your textbook, and I decided to join you. Hence the books on the floor.” He gestures to the messy pile next to Archie’s bed.

“Oh. Okay.” Archie wipes a hand over his face and sits up. “You want dinner? I’m hungry.”

“I’m good, thanks. Think I’ll just head back to the trailer, maybe cook something.” He already feels like he’s over-stayed his welcome at the Andrews’ house. Plus, the idea of taking a nap with Archie _and_ eating dinner with him feels…strange. It reminds him too much of last year, he realizes. And every year before that. When things were normal between them. Jughead isn’t sure why, but he’s not ready for that yet.

“You sure?” Archie asks.

“Yeah, it’s all good.”

“Want me to drive you home?”

“No offense, but I don’t think you’re awake enough to drive right now, Sleeping Beauty. You look like you’ve been out for, like, a hundred years.”

“So true love’s kiss woke me up, then?” Archie deadpans.

“You wish,” Jughead replies, his face heating up. “Pretty sure your stomach woke you up. Besides, isn’t Veronica in New York or whatever?”

“Veronica?” Archie mumbles, still sounding like he’s half asleep.

Jughead glances over at Archie, but the look on his face doesn’t give anything away. Jughead isn’t sure how to respond, so he just laughs awkwardly and files that interaction away for later. He hefts his bag up onto his shoulder and opens Archie’s door.

“See ya,” he says, trying to sound casual.

“See ya,” Archie replies.

Jughead heads out the door, takes the stairs down two at a time, and starts the short walk home. The cold winter air hitting his face makes it painfully obvious that he’s blushing, and even though there isn’t anyone outside to see him, he ducks his head, trying to hide his smile, and walks faster.

Towards the end of December, on the first afternoon of winter break, Jughead is lounging around the trailer with Archie when he gets a call.

“Hey, Jones,” the voice on the other end says.

“Toni! What’s up?” He hears other voices clamoring in the background, which sound suspiciously like Fangs and Sweet Pea.

“We’re coming home! We lived, bitch! We’re on the way back from Philly picking up Fangs, we’re like twenty minutes away from Riverdale now. Wanna hang out?”

“Hell yeah,” Jughead says, then glances over at Archie. “Oh wait, actually, Archie’s here. Let me ask if it’s okay with him.”

He pulls the phone away from his ear, trying to cover up the speaker as Toni goes _“ooooohhhhh”_.

“Hey, so Toni and Fangs and Sweet Pea are all back from school, they’re wondering if they can come over. Is that be cool with you? I know you don’t know them all that well, but…” He trails off.

“No, that’s fine by me! Sweet Pea and I were kinda bros at the beginning of last year,” Archie replies.

Jughead raises an eyebrow at him.

“I’m serious! We were on the basketball team together. We actually talked to each other at least, like, five times.”

That wouldn’t sound like much if it was anyone else, but this was Sweet Pea he was talking about, who probably didn’t even talk to Jughead five times in the month after he was initiated into his _gang_. The fact that he could stand to talk to Archie that many times is actually a pretty big deal.

Jughead shrugs. “Okay, cool. I’ll tell ‘em.”

He raises the phone to his ear again and tells Toni they’re good to come over. He’s met with uncharacteristically excited cheering from Fangs and Sweet Pea. Damn, school must have really taken a toll on them if they’re _that_ excited about coming over to do nothing in the trailer. It’s not like he can blame them, though. He’s been lonely as fuck since they all left, too.

A few minutes later, the three of them pile through the trailer door, not bothering to knock. Jughead jumps up to hug Toni, and to his surprise, Sweet Pea pulls him into an awkward half-hug, which only reminds Jughead of how stupidly tall Sweet Pea is. Fangs ruffles Jughead’s hair, which makes Jughead laugh and elbow his hand away.

Archie sits awkwardly on the floor, focusing on his notes so he doesn’t interrupt their moment.

Jughead realizes, once they’re all done bear-hugging him, that although none of them are wearing their Serpent jackets, they’re all still basically dressed like grunge lesbians, which is comforting. They haven’t become _completely_ different people in four months.

Sweet Pea opens the fridge, closes it, and proceeds to do the same with all the cabinets until he finds Jughead’s ramen stash. He pulls a bowl out of the cupboard and catches Jughead looking at him.

“What? We had a long drive. I’m fuckin’ hungry.”

Jughead can’t even bring himself to be mad. He just laughs, shaking his head, and turns back to Toni and Fangs.

“So, how come you guys drove up to Philly? Fangs, you go to school with Kevin, right? I figured he was gonna drop you off or something.”

Fangs grimaces. “Yeah, we kinda…broke up. Recently.”

“Today,” Toni adds.

Fangs runs a hand through his hair – which Jughead notices is slightly longer, but still expertly faded. He makes a mental note to ask Fangs to teach him how to cut his own hair.

“Yeah. Today. It wasn’t awful, I think we both knew it was coming, it’s just…I think we were kinda only together because of the cult stuff. Like, that’s really the only reason we got together in the first place. Shared trauma or whatever. Kevin’s great, but we’re just not really compatible like that, I guess. It kinda came up in conversation earlier today and. Yeah. I wasn’t planning on breaking up with him the first day of winter break, but it just sort of happened.”

Jughead grimaces sympathetically.

“So, yeah, I didn’t want to ask him for a ride back,” Fangs continues. “I just told him I had someone coming to pick me up. Which I didn’t, but they bailed me out,” he says, gesturing to Toni and Sweet Pea behind him. Jughead glances over at Sweet Pea, who’s watching the conversation intently while wolfing down his bowl of stolen ramen.

“That’s rough, dude,” Jughead says, patting Fangs on the back and trying to exude empathy.

Archie gets distracted reading his book for English class and tunes out everything around him until Jughead taps him on the shoulder.

“What? Sorry,” Archie says quickly.

“You’re good. We’re gonna go outside, do you want to come?”

Archie looks confused. “It’s December. Why are you going outside?”

“Like…to smoke.”

 _“Oh,_ right,” Archie says. “Um, sure.”

“You sure? I mean, you don’t have to smoke or anything, you can just come chill out, too.”

“No, actually, I…want to try it.”

Jughead raises an eyebrow at him. “Okay, cool.” He sticks out a hand to pull Archie up, and Archie takes it.

Outside, they quickly realize that there are only four lawn chairs.

“Shit,” Jughead says. “I guess we never had more than four people out here.” He thinks for a second. “Rock-paper-scissors for who has to sit on the ground?”

“Okay,” Sweet Pea grumbles, reluctantly getting up from the chair he’d already claimed.

Jughead loses at rock-paper-scissors, so he ends up sitting on the ground, leaning against Archie’s chair. It’s weird at first, but after they pass one of Fangs’ joints around a couple of times, the others join him in sitting on the ground.

Fangs pulls out a second from the Altoids tin in his pocket, and when Jughead hands him the lighter, Archie asks, “Can I try?” He sounds uncharacteristically shy, and it’s kind of endearing.

“Sure,” Jughead says with a shrug. “You’ve never done this before, right?”

“Nope. First time for everything.”

Sweet Pea clears his throat. “Wait, didn’t you do, like, coke or something that one time? At Lodge’s party, where everyone got super fucked up and had to do community service afterward?”

Toni mutters: “And then _we_ got arrested ‘cause the police raided Southside all because some rich parents were pissed that their kids got high.” She coughs exaggeratedly. “Sorry, something stuck in my throat. What a weird cough. Anyways, yeah, didn’t you do coke?”

“No!” Archie insists, his face turning red. “It wasn’t coke.”

“Oh, sorry, right. _Jingle Jangle_ ,” Sweet Pea replies.

“I didn’t even want to do it,” Archie continues. “But everyone else was doing it and Veronica was like ‘do it Archiekins’ and I was like ‘Jesus, fine, maybe it’ll make this party suck less’.”

Jughead snorts. “Okay then. It’s fine, Arch. Sweet Pea’s just being an ass.” He isn’t facing Sweet Pea, but he can sense that he’s probably flipping him off behind his back. He passes the joint to Archie. “So, just, like, inhale it, and then hold it for a couple of seconds, and then blow it out.”

“Okay,” Archie says, taking the joint from Jughead and holding it carefully, like it might bite him or something. He flicks the lighter a couple times. He finally manages to light it and take a hit, and immediately has a coughing fit. Jughead hands him a water bottle and glares at Sweet Pea when he laughs.

“It’s cool, everyone coughs at first. Just don’t inhale as much next time,” Jughead says.

Archie tries again, and this time he manages to hold the smoke in for a few seconds before exhaling.

“There you go,” Jughead says, feeling strangely proud.

Archie takes a couple more hits, and then Sweet Pea clears his throat.

“You wanna save some for the rest of us?” He asks, sounding just slightly threatening.

“Yeah, sorry,” Archie rasps, and hands the joint to Jughead, who passes it to Toni, mouthing ‘sorry’.

The minutes bleed into each other as they all start to catch up. Toni and Sweet Pea both complain about their noisy neighbors and the lack of heating in their apartment. Fangs describes his dorm roommate – a nice guy, albeit weirdly obsessed with some trash-TV teen drama, who spends all his time writing something on his computer that he never lets Fangs read.

After a while – Jughead isn’t sure exactly how long it’s been; he tends to lose track of time when he’s high – something like a strobe light starts going off behind him. He turns around to see Archie holding his phone a few inches from his face, taking photo after photo with the front flash on, lighting up his face.

“Hey, buddy,” Jughead says gently. “Whatcha doing?”

Archie looks over at him, and Jughead bites back a laugh. Archie looks _baked_.

“It’s pulling the soul out of my body,” Archie says seriously. Jughead waits for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. 

“Okay then,” Jughead replies, turning back to the conversation. Sweet Pea, Fangs, and Toni are all looking at him with the exact same _what-the-hell’_ expression.

“Is he okay?” Toni asks.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, shrugging. “I figured he’d get like this.”

“This is fucking hilarious,” Sweet Pea says. Jughead notices that he’s apparently scooted closer to Fangs, because the two of them are sitting pressed together. Maybe because of the cold, but probably not. Jughead figures that’s their business.

“Yeah, I kinda thought he was gonna be weird high,” Toni adds. “But this is not what I expected. It’s like Animal Planet.”

Jughead elbows her. “Hey! Just ‘cause he does dumb stuff while he’s high doesn’t mean he’s…” Jughead trails off, trying to find the right word.

“A himbo?” Sweet Pea chimes in.

Jughead shoots Sweet Pea a look, ready to argue, but he doesn’t have the energy, and he’s already kind of forgotten what they were talking about. “Yeah,” he says with a sigh.

“Hey,” Archie says from behind him. “Can we go inside? It’s cold as fuck out here.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say ‘fuck’ before,” Toni stage-whispers.

“Me either,” Sweet Pea adds. “I kind of like high Archie.”

“Shut up,” Jughead whispers back, laughing. Turning towards Archie, he says, “Yeah, let’s go inside. I can’t feel my ass anymore.”

Back inside, Fangs and Jughead start up a game of Mariokart, which they’re all fiercely competitive about. Their Wii is old as shit, mostly held together by duct tape and hope, and they only have one game for it, but it works, and that’s enough for them. It technically belongs to Sweet Pea – he got it from his brother, who got it from his girlfriend, who got it from her little brother when he got a new console or something – but they keep it at the Joneses’ trailer because it’s the one place that actually has a TV to plug it into, and that’s usually where they all hang out, anyways.

To Jughead’s dismay, Fangs still kicks his ass in Mariokart. “Damn it!” He shouts, after ending the race in 12th place yet again. “I’ve been practicing! How do you _always_ win?”

“I’m just unbeatable,” Fangs says with a smile. Sweet Pea, sitting next to him on the couch, sticks out his hand for a fist bump.

“He’s unbeatable,” Sweet Pea repeats.

Jughead scowls up at him from the floor. “I’m done with Mariokart for today,” he says, collapsing onto the carpet dramatically. “There’s only so much defeat a man can take.”

“I’m down to play something else,” Sweet Pea says.

“Well, that’s the only video game,” Jughead replies.

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve only been playing it with you guys for, like, a year. If you’ve got a problem with that, you can buy—”

“I’m poor,” Jughead says. “I’m not buying another video game.”

“Thought so,” Sweet Pea says. “Me too. Obviously.”

“Then what are we gonna play?” Jughead asks.

Fangs gazes at the TV, flicking through the list of racetracks, then puts the remote down.

“Spin the bottle?” Fangs suggests.

Sweet Pea and Jughead turn to look at him, surprised.

“For old times’ sake,” he adds.

“What the hell did you guys _do_ in high school?” Archie asks.

Jughead turns around to look at Archie, and, because he’s still stoned enough to not give a shit, winks at him. Archie’s eyes widen and he glances away quickly.

Before anyone else can answer, the conversation is interrupted by a tinny rendition of “Screwed” by Janelle Monae.

“Oh, that’s me,” Toni says, jumping up and pulling her phone out of her pocket. She walks away into the kitchen to answer it, which doesn’t really afford her any privacy, since they’re in a trailer and the kitchen is all of ten feet away. “Hey, babe,” she says into the phone.

“It’s Cheryl,” Sweet Pea declares.

“Wait, they’re still together?” Jughead asks incredulously.

“Yup,” Fangs replies. “Didn’t expect it, but they’re still going strong. Cheryl ended up going to some fancy school up in Vermont, I think?”

“Still drove down to visit Toni every month,” Sweet Pea adds.

“Huh. Didn’t think Cheryl was so…loyal.” Jughead shrugs.

“I told you she’s not that bad,” Archie says slowly. “She’s actually really nice if you get to know her. Just…weird.”

“Rich person disease,” Jughead says. “It’s incurable. But, hey, if she treats Toni right, I _guess_ I can set aside my biases.”

Toni walks back in to join them and grabs her coat from the chair where she’d tossed it.

“That was Cheryl. She just got back from school and asked me to come over.” Toni looks all too excited to get the hell out of there, and Jughead can’t blame her for not wanting to participate in spin-the-bottle with four dudes – especially since she has an actual girlfriend with a nice house and, probably, better heating.

“Okay, see ya,” Jughead says. Sweet Pea, Fangs, and Archie all echo him. “You know you’re welcome over here whenever. I’ll be here. Long as I’m not working.”

“Cool,” Toni says, smiling, and lets herself out.

Sweet Pea clears his throat. “So, are we playing?”

Jughead smirks at him. “You seriously want to? Didn’t meet anyone at school, then?” Sweet Pea chucks a pillow at him. “I’m _kidding_ , jeez. Although, you know, if you want to make out with Fangs, you could just ask him.”

“That’s not – I – that’s not what I said,” Sweet Pea sputters. Fangs avoids eye contact, looking suddenly very interested in the arm of the ratty old couch.

Jughead turns around to face Archie. “You wanna play?” he asks, hoping he doesn’t sound as desperate as he feels.

“Um.” Archie stares at a spot on the floor in front of him. “I – I mean –”

“What, you scared to kiss a dude? Are you homophobic or something?” Sweet Pea sneers. Apparently his tolerance for Archie was short-lived.

“ _No_ , no, it’s not that, Jesus,” Archie insists. Sweet Pea raises his hands in mock surrender. “It’s just–”

Jughead cuts him off. “If you don’t wanna play because of Veronica, that’s okay,” he says quickly. “You don’t have to. I was just asking.”

“No, it’s not that. Ronnie wouldn’t care. She told me she played spin-the-bottle the first night she moved into her dorm at school, anyways.”

“Um…okay.” Jughead wasn’t really expecting that, but it’s not exactly out of character for Veronica.

Archie sighs. “Fine, I’ll – I’ll play.” As Archie moves sit closer to the rest of them on the floor, Jughead notices his face is flushed. Probably just from the cold. Even though they came inside, like, half an hour ago.

Sweet Pea plucks an empty root beer bottle off the coffee table and sits it on the floor between them. “Who’s going first?” he asks, sitting back and crossing his arms over his chest.

 _Fuck it_ , Jughead thinks. “I will.”

He spins the bottle tentatively, internally crossing his fingers. _Please land on Archie. Please land on Archie_. It spins a few rounds before coming to a stop in front of…Sweet Pea.

Jughead sighs dramatically. Sweet Pea raises his eyebrows at him.

“If you didn’t wanna play, you didn’t have to,” Sweet Pea says.

“Shut up,” Jughead responds.

“Make me,” Sweet Pea replies. Jughead rolls his eyes at how cliché it sounds.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says, shuffling over to Sweet Pea.

To his credit, Sweet Pea really goes for it – cups the back of Jughead’s neck and pulls him in for a kiss. When Sweet Pea runs his tongue over Jughead’s lower lip, it catches him off-guard. He’d expected Sweet Pea to push him off after a split second, but he keeps going, one hand tangled in Jughead’s hair, pushing him away infinitesimally and then pulling him back in, over and over again.

Sweet Pea’s actually not bad at this, Jughead realizes, and he’s still pleasantly buzzed, so he doesn’t feel as self-conscious as he usually would about kissing back – plus, he thinks, maybe Archie will get jealous. Jughead lets Sweet Pea take control, feeling like he’s sort of just along for the ride at this point. He actually finds himself enjoying it more than he expected to, and chalks it up to just being single for too long.

Archie coughs, startling both of them, and they pull apart. Jughead picks his beanie up off the floor and pulls it back onto his head. Sweet Pea wipes his mouth on his sleeve.

The four of them sit in awkward silence for a few seconds. Mercifully, Fangs breaks the tension by grabbing the bottle and placing it in front of himself. “My turn,” he declares.

He spins the bottle, staring at it like he’s trying to control it with the Force. It comes to a stop, yet again, in front of Sweet Pea.

“I think that bottle’s weighted towards you, dude,” Jughead says.

Sweet Pea doesn’t respond, doesn’t even make eye contact. Fangs is still staring at the bottle.

“Well?” Jughead says expectantly.

Fangs looks at him like a deer caught in headlights. Jughead raises his eyebrows and cocks his head toward Sweet Pea. When Fangs still doesn’t make a move, Jughead mouths _go for it_. Fangs nods resolutely and crawls over to where Sweet Pea is sitting. Jughead doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sweet Pea look so nervous before. It’s pretty funny, actually. 

Jughead glances over at Archie, who mouths _“what are they doing?”_

Jughead shrugs. “It’s complicated,” he stage-whispers back.

He’s well aware that he doesn’t really have any room to criticize Fangs and Sweet Pea for being repressed or whatever, but it’s still funny. Plus, a part of him has been rooting for them all along, even though Sweet Pea is kind of an ass.

Finally, Fangs leans in and kisses Sweet Pea, close-mouthed and chaste. Sweet Pea grabs the lapel of Fangs’ jacket, tugging him closer without breaking the kiss. They pull apart after only a few seconds, both of them flushed. Sweet Pea keeps holding onto Fangs’ coat. He lets go and Fangs glances around for a second before sitting down next to him, pressed up alongside him. It’s so cute it’s kind of disgusting, honestly.

Sweet Pea stands up suddenly, muttering something about the bathroom, and walks away. Jughead gives Fangs a thumbs up, and Fangs smiles shyly.

After a few minutes, no one instigates a third round of spin-the-bottle, so Jughead and Fangs relocate to the couch to pick up their Mariokart rivalry again. Jughead scrolls through the courses quickly, and selects Rainbow Road.

Fangs smacks him on the arm, laughing. “This is the worst track!”

“I know!” Jughead replies. “That’s the point. You’re bad at it too, so we’re equal.”

Unlike Sweet Pea, for the most part, Jughead is comfortable around Fangs. Fangs is so sweet that it’s pretty hard for anyone to dislike him, but he and Jughead had bonded surprisingly fast, especially once Jughead found out that Fangs liked writing, and that he was actually really fucking good at it, too.

Jughead wasn’t usually an affectionate person, but Fangs was, and Jughead had surprised himself with how quickly he’d grown accustomed to it. After a few weeks of being friends, it had become pretty normal for them to hug, or share clothes, or for Jughead to sit on Fangs’ lap, which quickly became his preferred position when they were hanging out.

When Sweet Pea finally walks back in, Fangs is sitting on the couch with Jughead lying across his lap, propping himself up on his elbows. Their eyes are glued to the TV, both of them completely silent as they approach the finish line.

“I fucking won! Finally!” Jughead rolls off of Fangs and lands on the floor with a thump. He punches the air, and when Fangs doesn’t respond, Jughead smacks his leg. “I beat your ass!”

Sweet Pea scoffs. “Didn’t Fangs beat you, like, fifty times before?” He jumps up to sit down next to Fangs on the couch before Jughead can take his spot back.

“I’m learning,” Jughead whines. “Plus, it’s not my fault that his foster parents had, like, all the game consoles. He has an unfair advantage.”

“Uh huh,” Sweet Pea replies, unconvinced.

The room goes quiet for a few seconds until Archie clears his throat.

“I, uh—”

The three of them turn to face Archie, surprised that he’s actually starting a conversation. Archie clears his throat again, a nervous habit that Jughead recognizes.

“I was just gonna say, isn’t it fair to do another round? I mean, Sweet Pea went twice, and some people haven’t gone yet.”

 _Subtle,_ Jughead thinks, but his heart is already racing again.

Archie continues: “So, shouldn’t we do another round to finish the game?”

Sweet Pea looks over at Jughead, looking dubious.

“No, wait,” Jughead butts in before Sweet Pea can say anything. “He’s right. It’ll even out the score.”

Sweet Pea and Fangs glance at each other, doing their weird psychic-communication thing.

“Fine by me.” Fangs says, shrugging.

Sweet Pea mutters something under his breath. Louder, he adds, “Fine. Go for it.”

“I’ll go,” Archie adds hurriedly.

They all sit down on the carpet again. Sweet Pea sits down behind Fangs, out of the circle and clearly not interested in going again. Jughead figures he doesn’t have any reason to.

Archie stares down at the bottle for a long second, long enough that Jughead considers asking if he’s okay, before spinning it hard, sending the bottle sliding across the carpet. Finally, it slows to a stop, halfway across the room but undoubtedly pointing right at Jughead.

Jughead freezes. It’s exactly what he’d been hoping for, but now, faced with the actual possibility of kissing Archie, he doesn’t know what to do. After what feels like almost a full minute, he swallows hard, then shrugs and moves closer to Archie. He looks up him for a long moment, waiting for Archie to make the first move.

Finally, Archie closes the distance between them, tilting Jughead’s chin up to press their lips together. Jughead rests his hands on Archie’s shoulders, suddenly hyper-aware of Archie’s breath tickling his face, like that’s the only detail his brain can manage to focus on without short-circuiting. One of Archie’s hands slides up to the back of Jughead’s neck, threading his fingers through Jughead’s hair. Archie’s grip tightens and Jughead gasps into his mouth. That seems to spur Archie on; he trails his other hand to rest on Jughead’s waist, and pulls Jughead up to settle onto his lap.

Sweet Pea groans and turns away pointedly to stare at the other wall.

“Should we tell them to stop?” Jughead hears Sweet Pea mutter.

“Nah. Let them have their fun,” Fangs replies.

Jughead feels warmth radiating off of Archie, like always. It’s comforting, somehow, that one part of Archie stays the same, even in the weirdest of circumstances. Jughead runs his teeth across Archie’s lower lip, testing the waters, and Archie freezes for a fraction of a second before clutching his waist tighter, encouraging him. Jughead smiles against Archie’s mouth and does it again, this time running his tongue over the seam of Archie’s lips. Archie lets Jughead lick into his mouth, and when Jughead pulls back for a second, Archie tries to do the same to Jughead, but he misses and bites his tongue instead.

“Hey!” Jughead yelps and pulls away slightly. They both dissolve into breathless laughs. Jughead leans his forehead against Archie’s, breathing hard and grinning so wide it hurts. It feels like his entire body is buzzing, like he’s warming up from the inside out, and he’s hyper-aware of Archie’s hand still gripping his waist.

“You two finally fuckin’ done?” Sweet Pea’s voice interrupts.

Jughead turns around and makes a face at him before hopping off of Archie’s lap and settling onto the couch again, trying to feign casualness.

“Okay, who wants me to beat their ass in Mariokart next?”

Sweet Pea sits down next to him and picks up the spare Wii remote on the couch cushion. Archie sits there motionless, slightly dazed.

The rest of the night passes by relatively normally. Jughead desperately wants to bring up whatever the hell just happened between him and Archie, ‘cause it was _way_ more than just a friendly bros-helping-bros kiss, but he doesn’t know what to say. _Hey, pal, remember that time an hour ago when we made out for like five minutes straight?_

Indecisiveness wins, in the end, and he doesn’t mention it. When Archie finally gets up to drive himself home, Jughead calls out “Bye!”, trying to sound casual. As Archie’s closing the door behind him, he glances at Jughead for a split-second, something unreadable in his expression. Jughead registers it and tells himself he’ll figure his shit out in the morning when he can think rationally again.

The next day, all his soul-searching really comes up with is that kissing Archie was fucking awesome, but he has no idea what the hell it means for the two of them, and Archie hasn’t texted him since that night, so Jughead honestly has no idea what the hell he’s supposed to do now. He’s unmoored, uncertain, and more than a little worried that something has changed between them permanently – and not in the way he’d hoped. It feels like they’re back to square one again, back to not even knowing how to talk to each other.

Without the guise of studying – even the cruelest teachers didn’t assign them homework over winter break – Jughead keeps trying to come up with reasons to call Archie, or things to text him about, but the truth is, his life is pretty boring. There’s not much for him to update Archie on, except for his recent visit to Shankshaw to see his dad, and that seems like a pretty bleak conversation starter.

Jughead has a little Christmas party with the Serpents, which is pretty much just like every other time they hang out together, except that someone puts up a tree in the middle of Sunnyside, so they all sit around it and catch up, swapping stories and tossing sticks into the bonfire. Having Toni and Fangs and Sweet Pea around again makes Jughead realize how much he’d missed them during the semester, and their company helps him forget about the Archie Dilemma for a few days.

That is, until late one night, when he gets a text from Archie out of nowhere. It’s three words.

_Can we talk?_

Jughead’s heart speeds up all over again, and he’s starting to get sick of this. It’s just Archie, and they’ve known each other forever, so he it doesn’t make sense for him to practically have an anxiety attack over a three-word text, and yet. 

He replies immediately, matching Archie’s brevity. _Sure. When?_

_Now? If it’s not too late for you._

Jughead checks the time. It’s nearly midnight, and if it was anyone else asking to meet up with him now, he’d laugh. Archie, however, rarely stays up this late, so it must be pretty important, and Jughead gets the sense that it’s not a conversation he wants to put off till tomorrow.

Archie asks him to meet him at St. Paul’s, a weird little Catholic school on the edge of the Northside. They used to go to the playground together as kids, after school let out. Jughead’s surprised that Archie still remembers it.

He rolls up on his bike and parks it, kicking out the kickstand. Archie’s sitting on one of the platforms of the playground, leaning against a slide. Jughead climbs up the steps and sits down next to him. The metal grate of the platform is freezing cold, and it starts to seep through his jeans, but he doesn’t want to interrupt whatever Archie has to say by complainig about the cold. 

Archie doesn’t speak up. Jughead shifts uncomfortably. He can’t stand the silence for very long, so he asks, “What’s up?”

“Veronica.” Archie says simply. “We broke up. She said she…met someone at school.”

“Shit,” Jughead breathes. “I’m sorry, Arch.”

“I’m not even surprised, really, it’s just…” Archie trails off, and Jughead stays quiet. He knows the best thing he can do right now is just listen. “It's not like I could really compete with anyone who's, like, there with her, and seeing her every day. But it still sucks, you know? She's moving on with her life. Trying to leave Riverdale behind. Like she doesn't want anything to do with us – with _me_ – anymore.”

Jughead glances over at him and nods. “I get it. I’m sorry, man. If there’s anything I can do, you know…I’m here.”

Archie keeps going. “She wouldn't even tell me who it was – the person she met, or whatever. She was being really weird and mysterious about it.”

Jughead lets his head loll back against the bars. Archie sighs, looking off in the distance, and goes silent.

Jughead clears his throat. “I know it’s not the same thing, but when Betty told me she met someone, I was kinda upset about it, too. It wasn’t, like, right away once she moved in, it was pretty recent, actually. But even though we broke up over the summer, it was still hard. I guess it just hurts to see people you love moving on. Especially watching them go off to college and meet new people and fall in love and all that stuff, when we’re still here. In Riverdale. Same as always.”

“Same as always,” Archie repeats softly.

Jughead turns to look at him, and he’s suddenly very aware of how close they are to each other. His legs have pretty much gone numb, except for where Archie’s thigh is pressed alongside his. The night around them is silent, and he can hear Archie breathing softly. Everything around them goes silent and still, save for their breath, dissipating between them like tiny clouds in the freezing air. And then the tide breaks.

Archie leans in, just slightly, and Jughead does too, reflexively, and then suddenly Archie’s kissing him, and his thoughts scatter like a flock of crows. He grabs onto Archie’s hoodie and holds on like Archie’s an ice floe and he’s Jack from _Titanic_. Jughead breaks away for a second to shift closer to Archie, swinging a leg over Archie’s, and situating himself in his lap. _Just like the first time_ , he thinks, amazed that there actually _was_ a first time. Archie cups his jaw with both hands, so gentle, and pulls him in again.

It feels like Archie’s hands are the only thing holding him together, his entire existence narrowed down to those two points of contact, and he knows he’s being dramatic, but can’t bring himself to care. That buzzing, electric feeling is back, filling him with more confidence than he should reasonably have while kissing his best friend – the person he’s been in love with for maybe his entire life – but the hopeless romantic part of his brain insists that this was always meant to happen.

Spurred on by the adrenaline rushing through him, Jughead slips his hand under the hem of Archie’s shirt, testing the waters. Archie shivers, laughing and breaking away just long enough to say “Sorry, your hands are cold,” before tugging Jughead back into him. Archie licks into his mouth, running his tongue along the roof of Jughead’s mouth, and Jughead has to keep himself from letting out a gasp or some other equally embarrassing noise. Jughead does the same to him, and Archie lets him, their tongues sliding together, ticklish but also, somehow, hotter than it has any right to be. They fall into an easy rhythm, push-pulling and breathing each other in. Jughead has no idea what he’s doing, but his body responds like he’s made for this, like he’s got a sixth sense specifically made for kissing Archie.

If he wasn’t so caught up in the all-encompassing, incredulous feeling of _it’s finally happening_ , Jughead would be embarrassed by the fact that he’s practically shoving his tongue down Archie’s throat. Frankly, it’s the kind of thing that he’d find disgusting if it was anyone else but them doing it. He thanks the universe for privacy and nighttime, his thoughts wild and borderline nonsensical, for the fact that there’s no one else around them to see them go at it like this, like they’re trying to eat each other alive, like maybe if they hold each other close enough they’ll make up for all those years they could’ve been doing this.

And then, just as quickly as it started, it stops. Archie lets go of him and pulls away, avoiding Jughead’s eyes and muttering, “I should go.” Jughead releases his grip on Archie’s shirt and scrambles backwards off his lap, bewildered. Archie stands up and, without another word – without even _looking_ at Jughead – he walks off into the parking lot and drives away.

Jughead just watches him go, stunned. _What the fuck just happened?_ He looks down at his clothes, like they might offer some kind of proof that that _did_ actually happen, that he’s not just imagining it. Archie kissed _him_. And then freaked the fuck out. Just when he’d thought things were finally starting to go right for once.

Jughead slams his fist into the cold metal beneath him, and immediately regrets it when he’s met with a searing, stinging pain in his knuckles. He clutches his hand to his chest and decides to get the hell out of there before he can manage to embarrass himself yet again.

When he gets home, he doesn’t even glance at his phone before turning it all the way off and chucking it onto the couch in the living room. He walks into his bedroom and all but collapses into his bed, face-down into the pillow, and falls into a restless sleep.

Jughead wakes up the next morning with bruised knuckles and a headache from hell. He gets a few blissful seconds of ignorance before the memories of last night come rushing in. Remembering the look on Archie’s face as he shoved him away makes Jughead want to crawl under the covers and go back to sleep forever, and he would, except that his hand really fucking hurts, and he knows he should at least put some ice on it before passing out again. He walks into the kitchen and grabs a bag of peas from the freezer that he’s pretty sure has been used as an ice pack at least five times before.

He doesn’t have anything to do for the rest of the day, which is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, he doesn’t _have_ to do anything, so he doesn’t have to pretend like everything is fine in front of anyone else, but on the other hand, there’s nothing to distract him from spiraling into all the possible worst-case scenarios about what happened with Archie – why he freaked out, what he’s doing now, and whether he hates Jughead and never wants to see him again. Jughead examines the options – sit around and be depressed, sit around and be depressed while writing or reading or something, or sit around and be depressed with Toni and Sweet Pea and Fangs – and makes the executive decision to go the fuck back to sleep.

Jughead spends the next few days nursing his wounds, literally and figuratively. He’s aware that sulking and giving Archie the silent treatment isn’t the most mature way to handle things, but he can’t even bring himself to read the texts from Archie piling up on his lock screen. No matter how rationally Jughead tries to think about the situation, he’s still terrified of what Archie has to say to him. He’s not ready for Archie to _let him down easy_ – if he has to read “it’s not you, it’s me”, he thinks he might actually explode.

The Serpents group chat is blowing up, as per usual, but Jughead doesn’t have the energy to respond to those either. He scrolls through the messages for a few minutes, and even manages to laugh halfheartedly at a few of them. He sends them a vague text saying that he’s not feeling well, and that he probably won’t be up to hanging out for a day or two, then shuts his phone off again so he won’t have to hear Archie’s calls.

The silver lining to fighting with Archie – if Jughead giving him the cold shoulder can even be considered a fight – is that Jughead has a shit ton of free time and nothing better to do, so he ends up deep-cleaning the trailer and finishing some of the half-read books that have been piling up on his dresser since last summer.

When Jughead’s a few pages away from finishing the last book, someone knocks softly on the door. His first thought is that it’s one of the Serpents coming to check in on him, but they all knock like they’re trying to break down the door, and this was different. If the walls weren’t so thin, he wouldn’t have even heard it. He groans and stands up, sticking a makeshift bookmark (an old receipt) between the pages, and goes to open the door.

He’s greeted by Archie, looking half-frozen and holding up a takeout bag from Pop’s like a peace offering. Jughead leaves the door open and turns on his heel, stalking into the living room, where he sits down on the couch and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. After a few seconds, Archie shuts the door and follows him into the living room to sit down next to the couch in the La-Z-Boy. At least he had the good sense to not sit next to him.

Jughead can feel Archie looking at him. He pointedly avoids Archie’s gaze.

“I…I came by to see if you were okay,” Archie starts. “You haven’t been answering my texts or calls or anything, I got worried. What’s going on with you?”

Jughead looks at him then, trying to channel all the rage and frustration and confusion he’s been marinating in for the past few days into a single glare.

“What’s going _on_ with me? Are you kidding, Archie?”

Archie doesn’t say anything.

“Okay, you need me to spell it out for you? You fucking _kissed_ me, for, like, a _while_ , and it seemed like everything was good, and then you freaked out and ran off. So excuse me if I’m a little _confused_ , but I don’t think that I’m the one acting out-of-line here.”

“Jughead—”

“No, you wanted to know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you.” The words keep pouring out of him without any input from his brain. He feels like a geyser, or a volcano, something giant and angry and destructive. He probably sounds more angry than he should, but he can’t bring himself to care, not when he’s finally saying all the shit he’s been holding onto for god knows how long.

“I can’t do this again, Archie,” he spits out, emphasizing every word. “I don’t want to be your rebound, okay? I don’t know what’s going on with _you_ , or why you kissed me – not once, _twice_ – and you seemed to be into it, unless I’m going insane, but.” He takes a breath. “I don’t know what that _meant_ to you, because clearly I had the wrong idea, but it actually meant something to me. I can’t go through this shit again, Archie. I’ve been waiting for this for six fucking years.”

He hadn’t meant to add that part, but now that he’s said it, he realizes it’s true. In a quieter voice, he adds, “I don’t want to get tricked into thinking we could actually have something good and then get let down. Again.” He keeps his eyes locked on Archie’s as he says that. Maybe it’s cruel, but he wants Archie to understand how fucking scared and confused and angry he is about everything.

Archie’s face falls, and Jughead immediately regrets it. He’s always had a bad habit of going right for people’s weaknesses when he feels hurt, and even if what he said was true, Archie didn’t deserve it.

Jughead sighs. “I’m sorry. I just…I don’t get it. Can you please tell me what the fuck is going on?” He doesn’t try to keep the defeat out of his voice anymore.

Archie runs a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Jug.”

Jughead feels something inside of him contract into itself, his whole body going tense as he prepares for the worst – for the rejection speech Archie’s probably been preparing for days.

“It didn’t – it meant something to me, too. You’re not just a rebound. That wasn’t…out of nowhere. I’m…sorry, this didn’t go the way I planned. I didn’t even really have a plan. But I fucked it up anyways, ‘cause that’s what I do, I guess.”

Jughead starts to interrupt, to insist that Archie _doesn’t_ fuck everything up, but Archie barrels on before he can say anything.

“I don’t think I really understood what was going on inside my head for a long time. I’ve just been doing shit, going through the motions, doing everything I’m supposed to do or whatever, without ever considering how I feel about it. And then stuff like this happens.”

Archie’s still holding the bag of food, fidgeting with the edge and tearing off tiny pieces. “And I felt like I was _supposed_ to feel a certain way about Betty, and Veronica, and I _did_ love them, but…I don’t think I really got the difference between loving someone as a friend and loving them, like, romantically.” He pauses for a second and takes a deep breath. “‘Cause the first person I ever loved as a friend was the first person I ever loved as…more than, that, too. So I guess I never figured out they weren’t the same thing.”

“Who?” Jughead’s almost afraid to ask. _Please not Reggie_ , he prays.

Archie looks at him. “ _You_ , you idiot.” He laughs, shaking his head.

Jughead can’t even come up with anything to say. For someone who prides himself on being good with words, he’s coming up empty.

“I’ve been in love with you for…longer than I can remember, I think,” Archie continues.

Some part of Jughead’s brain registers that his heart is beating loud enough that he can hear it, now, but he’s too focused on hanging onto every word that comes out of Archie’s mouth.

“And I didn’t really get that until this year. I didn’t understand, or I just didn’t _want_ to feel it, so I just buried it under doing a bunch of other stupid shit until I _had_ to figure it out. The miracle of therapy, I guess.” He laughs again, and this time, Jughead laughs weakly, too. “The other night…it was nice. Seriously. I’m sorry I freaked out on you. I wasn’t trying to push you away, it was just…a lot to handle all at once, and we hadn’t actually _talked_ about anything, and I got overwhelmed, I guess.”

Archie pauses, and Jughead cuts in. “Wait, I thought you came here to, like, friend-break-up with me.”

“Hell no,” Archie replies, wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater. Jughead realizes he’s getting tearing up, too, and does the same. “This is a mess,” Archie says, smiling weakly.

“When did we get so fucked up?” Jughead asks wryly, only half-serious.

Archie sets down the takeout bag, which now looks like it’s been through a shredder. “I wish we could just redo everything. No Black Hood, no Hiram Lodge, no…weird shit. I just want to be normal high schoolers for once.”

“I think it’s a little late for that, Arch. Plus, haven’t you heard? I’m not wired to be normal.”

Jughead watches as Archie gets up and walks over to stand in front of him. It feels weird to sit there looking up at him, so Jughead stands up, too, bringing them face to face.

“We could start all over again,” Archie says, his voice softer. He sticks out his hand. “Hi, I’m Archie.”

Jughead glances between Archie’s outstretched hand and his face. Archie’s still teary-eyed, and Jughead’s sure he is, too, but Archie’s smiling now, looking small and nervous.

“You idiot,” Jughead says, and kisses him. Archie’s hands come to rest on his waist, and Jughead ends up accidentally planting his lips on Archie’s teeth because they’re both smiling too wide to make it work, but for some reason, that only makes it better.

This time, when they break apart to look at each other, Archie pulls him into a hug. Jughead buries his face in Archie’s shoulder and closes his eyes. It feels like he’s been holding his breath for longer than he can remember, but somehow, with Archie hugging him tight enough to puncture a lung, he can finally breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> love wins
> 
> i'm hoping to have the next chapter done much sooner than this one, so it shouldn't be too long until the ~final chapter~  
> kudos and comments are much appreciated!! thank you to everyone who's commented on this/subscribed to it, the validation keeps me going 😔✊


	5. spring, part ii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> graduation and gratuitous gay content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u so much to everyone who's stuck with me while writing this! it took longer than i expected but also so much shit has happened since may and i did my best lol. hope u like it <3  
> happy late birthday to jean!! i tried to finish this yesterday but it didn't work out LMAO  
> (suggested listening: pretty much any songs off the album "blonde" by frank ocean)

> _There will be mountains you won't move_   
>  _Still I'll always be there for you how I do_   
>    
>  _You look down on where you came from sometimes_   
>  _But you'll have this place to call home always_
> 
> \- "godspeed" / frank ocean

As Jughead starts spending more and more time at Archie’s house – afternoons bleeding into evenings, and then nights, and then several nights in a row – he’s surprised to find that the longer he spends with Archie, the less he wants to leave. After their first accidental nap together, especially once they start dating, the two of them start feeling more comfortable in each other’s presence again. Like they used to, before crushes and girls made it too awkward and complicated to give your best friend a hug or hold hands. Now it’s a little awkward like that, because every moment of physical touch carries that extra weight of _can-you-believe-we’re-actually-dating_ , but it’s a good kind of awkward. The dumb, butterflies-in-the-stomach kind that means that your crush on your best friend paid off, and now you get to be your best friend’s boyfriend, too.

He wants to brag about it, as stupid as he feels about that impulse. But he doesn’t really know who to tell – he considers calling Betty, but on second thought, decides there’s no way that conversation _wouldn’t_ be weird. Even if Betty’s completely, a hundred percent, totally over Archie, their history is still a sore spot for Jughead.

He can’t just jump up to go visit his dad and tell him; first, because the prison visitation hours are super short and infrequent, and he has to plan out a whole bus route up there, and second, because that’s kind of a whole new territory with his dad, and he doesn’t know if he wants to go there yet. Not that his dad won’t take it well. He will, Jughead’s almost positive he will.

But still, the idea of telling his dad about _this_ relationship feels different than it had when Jughead told him about Betty. The thing with Archie seems more vulnerable, somehow. Like he’s giving away more about himself. Maybe it’s something about all the years he’s felt this, and the fact that his dad watched him and Archie grow up together. Not to mention the fact that his dad’s almost guaranteed to laugh – with surprise, not hatred – when he finds out Archie likes guys. So he tables that discussion for later.

* * *

Even though there aren’t that many people for him to tell, just the quiet safety of spending time with Archie feels like enough of a celebration. Neither of them try to push things too far too quickly in the romance department (or the sexual department, for that matter); their relationship had started off with enough of that, and neither of them really needed another makeout session as badly as they just needed someone to fall asleep watching Netflix with, or someone to hug, no-questions-asked, after a really shitty day.

Jughead keeps his personal space from nearly everyone; he’s never liked random people (or even most of his friends and family) touching him, but with Archie, it’s different. Romantic partners have always been an exception to his personal-space-boundaries thing, but it feels like more than that with Archie, too. It’s an acknowledgment of sorts that they’ve both been through hell and back, in more ways than either of them wants to remember. It feels like an achievement, too. When he sits down next to Archie and leans against his shoulder, or Archie runs a hand through his hair, there’s a quiet recognition that they couldn’t always have this. And _thank god we do now._

The second time they take a nap together after school, Jughead keeps his hat on again. He figures he’ll find the right time to take it off. He wakes up before Archie, for the second time in a row, and sits back against the headboard to gaze down at him while he sleeps. It might be a little creepy, but he can’t bring himself to care. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s been able to just _look_ at Archie like this.

He finds himself noticing things he hasn’t paid attention to in a long time, like the way Archie’s hair curls behind his ears, and how his freckles have spread out onto his neck a little, and how he peaceful he looks when he sleeps. His eyes trace the curve of Archie’s upper arm, the little dip below his shoulder joint and above his bicep muscle, the tendons stretching over his elbow. Weird little human-body-things that he’s never thought twice about on anyone else, but noticing them on Archie is endearing, somehow.

They’re proof that under that golden-boy façade, unbreakable and invulnerable in front of most people, Archie is muscle and blood and bone and everything, just like him. It makes him more real. He notices a little scar below the crook of Archie’s elbow, on the widest part of his inner forearm, a little raised horizontal line, about the width of a toothpick. He looks at it for longer than he wants to, and then files it away under “maybe ask about it later”.

He absentmindedly takes his hat off after that, feeling like he should reciprocate somehow. The following day, he takes it off as soon as he walks inside the Andrews’ house.

He wonders if Archie ever watches him sleep. Whether he does the same exact thing, mapping out Jughead’s appearance and noticing little things about him, too. If it was anyone else, he’d be freaked out by the idea, but he’s okay with it if it’s Archie. Jughead’s comfortable around him, in a way he still can’t fully explain. Archie knows what he looks like, and while the thought sounds weird, he can’t think of how to explain it any other way. Jughead doesn’t have to monitor how he looks or sounds or acts around Archie, and for someone as socially anxious as he is, that’s a huge weight off his shoulders. Archie’s seen him sleeping, seen his ugliest snapchats and sent equally ugly ones back – he _knows_ Jughead, in the way only someone like Archie, who’s been through what he’s been through, can.

* * *

One early spring night, after dinner, Archie volunteers to choose a movie for all of them to watch, and he starts scrolling through Netflix in the living room while Jughead helps Fred wash the dishes. Even though Jughead’s surprised by how easy it’s been to work himself back into the daily routines of the Andrews’ house, he still feels a little awkward around Fred since he started coming over again.

His fight with Archie – his _everything_ with Archie over the course of the past year – is sort of an elephant in the room, and he doesn’t know how much Fred knows about what happened, and Jughead doesn’t exactly rejoice at the possibility of recounting his whole senior year nightmare for anyone, even Fred.

He washes plates and bowls one by one, handing them to Fred, who dries them and puts them back in the cupboard. They work together in a comfortable silence, until finally, Fred speaks up, sounding hesitant.

“It’s been nice having you around again, Jug.”

“It’s been nice being around again, Mr. A,” Jughead replies.

“I was really worried about Archie,” Fred confesses. Jughead just nods, not sure yet where he’s going with that.

“Me too,” Jughead adds honestly.

He knows Fred must’ve gone through hell over the past year, too, having to watch his son dig himself deeper and deeper into a hole he couldn’t get himself out of. And that was on top of everything else Fred already had to deal with – healing from getting shot, physical therapy, trying to keep his business afloat.

“Archie didn’t want to tell me what happened between you two, and I know it’s not my business, but it’s good to see you two getting along again. The two of you have been through a lot, I probably don’t even know the half of it.” Fred laughs, shaking his head. Jughead is quietly appreciative that he doesn’t ask about everything that had happened between. Maybe it’s a conversation for somewhere down the line.

* * *

Back when Archie had told him about the nonprofit’s PTSD support group thing, Jughead had made a note of it in his phone and looked it up later that night, even going as far as to add the first meeting date to his calendar. The night before the meeting, he mentions it to Archie, trying to feign casualness.

“Hey, you know the group you were talking about a while back? At the place you’re gonna work at?”

“Yeah, the trauma one?” Archie asks.

Jughead winces internally. He knows that’s what it is, that there are words for the shit he and Archie have gone through, but he still has a hard time actually calling it what it is. “Yeah,” he replies. “You still going to that?”

“Mhm,” Archie answers, pulling up his own calendar app. “Looks like it’s tomorrow at six.”

Jughead clears his throat awkwardly, fidgeting with the hem of his sleeve. “Do you think they’d let me come?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Archie look at him. “Yeah, if you want to. They’d be cool with it.”

Jughead doesn’t respond, unsure of what he wants to say. He feels like he should elaborate, should explain his change of heart or why exactly he feels like he wants to go to the group, but Archie doesn’t press it further. One of the good things about how damn long they’ve known each other is that they both know, to some degree, what each other are going through, and they know they’ll both talk about it when they’re ready.

Jughead knows he hasn’t told Archie everything. He’d only recently admitted to himself that he actually has issues he needs to deal with, that some of the things he’d written off as side effects of living in Riverdale are still messing with him. Archie doesn’t ask him to explain himself, and Jughead’s grateful for that. Their couple of long heart-to-heart conversations so far have definitely opened things up between them, but now that most of the crazy events of high school are behind them, there’s a hell of a lot more they’ll need to talk about someday. For once in Jughead’s life, though, imagining having those conversations doesn’t feel like a threat to himself, or to his relationship to Archie.

* * *

He goes up to visit his dad that weekend, feeling like the group session gave him the last bit of motivation he needed to open up about his feelings and all that. As he’d expected, his dad’s first reaction to the news about Archie is laughter, but then he immediately apologizes, explaining that he just hadn’t seen it coming.

“Neither did I, honestly,” Jughead admits. “I’m still not really used to it.”

“I know the feeling,” FP replies, and Jughead isn’t sure what he means, but before he can ask, his dad continues. “But, hey, good for you, kid. Sounds like the two of you have come a long way.”

“No kidding.” Jughead pauses for a second. “I wish you could’ve been here for it, though.”

FP smiles, then, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “So do I.” He straightens in his seat, and adds: “But, hey, I have a parole hearing coming up. Might be getting out early, they’re talking about overcrowding. I might be home in time to see you off for college.”

“That’s great, Dad,” Jughead says earnestly. He’s been dreading having to leave his dad behind for school and not being able to visit him nearly as often. The possibility of his dad coming home early, so Jughead can help him get settled in before he leaves and say goodbye for real, takes a weight off his shoulders.

The conversation shifts to school, and Jughead briefly mentions graduation, promising to send his dad photos since he can’t be there in person. Even though he hates getting photos taken, Jughead knows his dad will want to see him in his cap and gown, with his diploma and everything, and Fred will probably want to take pictures anyway. Jughead leaves the prison feeling relieved, and, for once, hopeful about his dad’s future. It’s still uncertain, but there’s a promise of a better life ahead, for both of them.

* * *

After the conversation with his dad, Jughead starts checking off the other boxes on his list of people he needs to update about his life. He texts his mom asking when she’ll be around to talk on the phone – given that he’s learned his lesson about randomly calling out of the blue – and they set a time for later that night. He doesn’t tell her about Archie – partly because he’s nervous, but also partly because she’s not really involved with his personal life much anymore. He figures that if she comes to graduation, he can tell her then. Or something.

The conversation goes pretty much how he’d expected it to: he gives his mom the time and date of his graduation ceremony, but reassures her over and over again that he knows she’s busy and it’s a long trip, and that she doesn’t have to come. She congratulates him, with real, genuine happiness in her voice that he hasn’t heard for a long time, but doesn’t make any promises about coming back to Riverdale.

He’s a little disappointed, but he can’t blame her. She’d left for a reason, and she hadn’t had much of a presence in his life during high school, so outside of the cursory happiness and relief about the fact that he’s finally graduating, Jughead figures the ceremony doesn’t mean all that much to her. He tries not to think too hard about the fact that neither of his parents will be at his graduation. Fred will be there, and so will his friends, and that’s enough.

And that reminds him that he needs to tell Betty, too. Well, about graduation. The news about Archie can wait. He calls her that weekend, when he knows she’ll be out of classes, and they spend almost an hour catching up about schoolwork and how Betty’s second semester has gone – she has a 4.0 _again_ , which doesn’t exactly surprise him, but he’s still impressed by her ability to juggle seemingly endless responsibilities.

Betty reassures him that college is way, way better than high school, and that she’s sure he’ll enjoy it. The past year has made it pretty clear just how different their personalities actually are, but he appreciates the encouragement just as much anyways. Out of nowhere, Betty adds that one of the best parts of college for her has been getting out of Riverdale – which he’d figured – but especially getting away from her mom, which he hadn’t thought about.

“I still love her, and I don’t want to cut her off completely, but holy shit, not living under her roof has made my life better. I feel like I’m actually a person now, I can make my own decisions without her breathing down my neck. I mean, I share a room with someone else and I _still_ have more privacy than I used to living at home. Like, at least I know my roommate’s not going to go through my diary for _evidence_.”

Jughead laughs, and then apologizes immediately. “Sorry, I probably shouldn’t, like, laugh at your suffering.”

Thankfully, Betty laughs, too. “No, it’s fine. If I didn’t laugh about this shit, I think I’d finally lose it. Plus, you know what high school was like. If anyone’s qualified to laugh about how horrible Riverdale is, it’s us.”

“True.” There’s a slightly awkward silence, then, as Jughead tries to figure out what to say. After a minute or so, he clears his throat.

“So, my graduation is on the 12th, the ceremony’s at one o’ clock, I think. Are you – are you gonna be back from school then? I mean, you don’t have to come, but if you want, and you’re back then, you can—”

“Of course I want to come, Jug. You came to mine, and you had to sit next to my _mom_ during it. I feel like I owe you for that.”

“Yeah, well. Only if you want to.” A second later, he adds: “And you can bring, uh, the person you’re dating, if you want. I mean, I don’t know where they live or if they’re gonna visit you over the summer. But they’re welcome in Riverdale, obviously – as welcome as anyone can actually feel in Riverdale, I guess.”

“Thanks, Jug.” It sounds like Betty’s smiling. “I think I’ll take you up on that. It’d be nice to bring her.”

“Yeah,” Jughead agrees, trying to keep the surprise out of his voice, because he _is_ surprised, but he doesn’t want Betty to think he thinks it’s weird for her to be dating a girl. It’s just weird because it’s new to him, but he also doesn’t have any room to talk ‘cause he’s dating _Archie_ for god’s sake, and he realizes he’s overthinking the whole thing way too much and hasn’t actually said anything in response yet.

He clears his throat and adds, “I can’t wait to meet her,” trying not to sound _too_ awkward. Betty laughs into the phone.

"What?" Jughead asks.

"Nothing," Betty replies. "Nothing. I'll see you there."

* * *

By May, Jughead and Archie both pretty much feel like they’ve graduated already, and the rest of the semester is really just a formality. They’ve both already spent more than enough time in high school. Thankfully, their teachers seem to recognize that everyone has senioritis, so they don’t do much during the last few weeks of class.

Finals come and go without either of them caring very much – they’d already taken the tests last year, and their unnecessarily-frequent study sessions back in the winter had made them more prepared than they needed to be.

Towards the middle of May, flyers and announcements for senior prom start popping up, and Archie and Jughead both seem to wordlessly agree that they don’t want to go. The tickets are expensive, and they wouldn’t know anyone there, and neither of them really fuck with going to prom a second time, anyways.

The dance falls on a humid, warm Friday evening. Instead of going, Jughead just walks over to Archie’s house to spend the night there like every other weekend: talking, hanging out in Archie’s room, watching movies, and eating dinner with Fred.

Towards the end of dinner, Fred mentions something about the prom. Thankfully, Archie brushes the question off, explaining that neither of them had really felt like going. Archie somehow manages to avoid any acknowledgement of the fact that he and Jughead could’ve gone together. Or the fact that they _are_ together. Jughead figures Fred already knows, but for the sake of avoiding awkward conversations, he’d prefer to pretend like nothing has changed.

A tiny part of Jughead seizes at the realization that they could’ve had a chance at what he’d always wanted – they could’ve redone their tragically heterosexual senior prom, and gone as each other’s dates this time. But he knows it wouldn’t have been the same a year later.

Even though he’s a little disappointed that he and Archie missed their chance for that sort of coming-of-age fairy-tale night together, he’s just grateful for what they have now, for the bond they’ve somehow managed to forge despite everything in their lives that had nearly succeeded in forcing them apart. What he has with Archie isn’t the sort of picture-perfect relationship that high school movies are about, but it feels _real_. And messy, and strange, in an exhilarating sort of way.

They both help Fred with the dishes after dinner, and then head back up to Archie’s room. They settle in at opposite ends of the bed, and after a few moments, Archie clears his throat.

“I know prom is, like, super dumb and everything, but—” He runs a hand through his hair. “We could try dancing. Only if you want to, I know you hate dancing, but it might be nice—”

Jughead recognizes Archie’s nervous rambling as one of his own habits. It’s cute. “Sure.”

“Really?” Archie smiles, small and nervous.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, hopping off the bed and reaching a hand out to pull Archie up too. “But you’re gonna have to teach me.”

Archie kicks a few t-shirts out of the way so there’s a clear spot in the middle of his floor, and then takes Jughead’s hand, looking him right in the eyes. The moment suddenly feels weirdly intense, more intimate than Jughead had expected. Not to mention that he has no fucking clue how to slow-dance. He tries to diffuse the tension with humor, as usual.

“If I’d known I was coming over for a makeshift prom, I would’ve at least worn a tie. A t-shirt and skinny jeans—” he gestures down at his clothing, “—aren’t really formal attire.”

Archie gestures at his own clothes – sweatpants and an old t-shirt he’d won from the local fair as a kid. “It’s not like I look any better, guess you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”

Jughead snorts. “I appreciate the gesture, Arch, but one of us doesn’t actually look like a Calvin Klein model.”

“Didn’t know you were starting your modeling career,” Archie replies, grinning and stepping closer. He wraps an arm around Jughead’s waist, clasping Jughead’s right hand in his left. His hands are gentle; they always are. A thought flashes through Jughead’s head, then, that he doesn’t think Archie’s ever touched someone else with anything less than love. And maybe that’s what had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

“You can put your hand on my shoulder.” Archie says, tilting his head to the left to clarify.

Jughead realizes he’s just been standing there like a corpse. Laughing, he drapes his left arm over Archie’s shoulders, and even though they’re not all that different in size, something about it makes him feel a lot smaller than he is. Archie tucks a stray piece of hair behind Jughead’s ear. It’s a small thing, but he feels himself blush anyways. The whole blushing thing would be embarrassing, but he’s with Archie, which makes doing almost anything feel okay. 

“When did you get good at this? You trying to get on _Dancing with the Stars_ or something?” Jughead asks.

“Yeah, no.” Archie laughs. “Veronica and I…she asked me to take dance lessons before prom last year. Her parents paid for them.”

Jughead rolls his eyes and laughs good-naturedly. “Why am I not surprised?”

Archie’s mouth twists into an understanding half-smile. “I kept stepping on her toes at first, it was the worst. I got the hang of it eventually, though.”

“Well, I’m not making any promises,” Jughead replies, hoping the sarcasm covers up the insecurity in his words. “Last year’s prom was the first and only time I ever attempted anything remotely similar to dancing. And I pretty much just followed whatever Betty was doing the entire time.”

Archie nods sympathetically. “Pretty sure that’s what I ended up doing with Veronica, too. She’s had, like, years of ballroom dancing lessons. It’s crazy.”

“I guess you gotta, when you’re rich and you have to go to seventeen Met Balls or whatever a year.”

“Yeah,” Archie mutters. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, presses play, and then tosses it onto the bed. Jughead recognizes the intro to [“Godspeed” by Frank Ocean](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLR-qlpBYTQ) playing softly from the little speaker on Archie’s dresser.

“You made a whole playlist just for this? I’m flattered, Arch.” _He planned this?,_ Jughead thinks to himself.

“Shut up,” Archie says, huffing out a laugh. “I wanted to make it nice.” His right hand returns to Jughead’s waist, thumb pressing into the underside of his ribs.

Before Jughead has a chance to respond, Archie leans in and kisses him. It only lasts a split second, but Jughead’s brain short-circuits a little anyways. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it, this newfound ability to be casually affectionate with one another whenever they want. He can kiss Archie now, anytime he wants to. And Archie can kiss him back. Even though it’s becoming a pretty frequent occurrence, it still takes his breath away a little, and he quietly hopes that it’ll always be like that – that every time Archie kisses him, forever, will always feel a little bit like a tiny miracle. Underscored with the knowledge that, for a long time, it wasn’t this easy.

Archie steps to the left slightly, and Jughead follows him, Archie’s hand on his back guiding him. He manages to not trip during the next couple of steps, which is kind of an accomplishment, actually. He meets Archie’s eyes a few times and they both laugh nervously, but eventually, it gets more comfortable, even easy. Archie’s playlist is really fucking good, and Jughead finds himself enjoying the moment way more than he’d expected to. It’s a million times better than the whole spectacle of prom would’ve been. And this feels more like them, anyways, dancing around like cheesy idiots, wearing their normal clothes, in the privacy of Archie’s bedroom.

At some point, both of Archie’s hands end up on his waist, and they gradually get closer together until they’re basically just hugging while swaying slightly back and forth. It’s not really dancing, but Jughead isn’t complaining in the least. Ever since he can remember, hugging Archie has made him feel safe, in a way he rarely feels anywhere else.

“You know,” Jughead hears Archie say, voice slightly muffled against the side of his head. “We could’ve been doing this a year ago.”

Jughead half-smiles. “In front of the entire town?”

“Yeah, well.”

“Plus, that godawful music they play, I dunno,” Jughead says.

“Hey, I like Ed Sheeran!” Archie insists.

“Fair enough,” Jughead laughs. After a second, he adds: “But I know what you mean. I pretty much spent all of prom night last year thinking about how I’d always expected that we would go together.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, I mean. Mostly because I didn’t know who the hell else I’d go with, but also because…yeah.” He trails off.

“Yeah,” Archie agrees, and Jughead’s grateful that Archie gets it.

Jughead isn’t sure exactly how long they spend there, only that at some point, he and Archie both start yawning, and they agree to go to bed early.

Except, a few hours later, the two of them are still awake, long past when they’d intended to go to sleep, facing each other in bed and talking about everything and nothing. Jughead’s off on a tangent about the _Gone Girl_ screenplay, whispering and gesticulating wildly as he talks. When his hands still for a second, Archie reaches up and interlaces their fingers together. Archie’s hands are warm and rough. He squeezes Archie’s hand, and Archie squeezes back, and Jughead feels something warm settle in his stomach.

He realizes he’s lost his train of thought. He lets his sentence trail off, turning slightly to look at Archie. He can just barely make out his features in the streaks of light from the streetlamps outside.

He’s not sure where it comes from, or why that moment felt right, but the words are already clawing their way out, desperate to be spoken.

“I love you.” He’s not whispering anymore. Archie’s still holding his hand.

The moment stretches out, long and chest-tightening, and he replays every time he’s told Archie that before. Surely they’d both said it when they were kids, but it’s been a long time since then. If someone had asked Jughead, sure, he would’ve said he loved Archie. Always had. But he can’t remember the last time he said it _to_ him. Even if they both know they love each other, it feels different to say it out loud. He wants Archie to know, though.

A few years ago, Archie had mentioned that he told Veronica he loved her, and that she didn’t say it back. Archie had been trying to sound casual about it, but the fact that he told Jughead about it in the first place meant it must’ve been a pretty big deal.

And it’s a big deal for Jughead, too. He’s well aware of the fact that he’s probably said those three words less often throughout his life than most people have. But he’s never known anything as definitively as he knows that he fucking loves Archie. If he were a fictional character, that’d be, like, his main character trait. Or maybe his fatal flaw.

“I love you too.” Archie’s voice is raspy, but soft.

“Okay, cool.” Jughead cringes internally at the response as soon as it’s out of his mouth.

Archie just smiles, wide enough that his teeth reflect squares of light cast by the streetlights. “Cool.”

Jughead scoots closer to him, still lying on his side, and wraps an arm around Archie’s middle, tucking his head under Archie’s chin so they fit together like puzzle pieces. “Cool,” he repeats, and smiles until he falls asleep.

* * *

The day of the graduation ceremony sneaks up on both of them. Jughead jumps out of bed, having accidentally slept in, and starts rushing around the trailer, trying to get his shit together before Archie comes by to pick him up.

Jughead gives up on the whole formalwear thing and decides to go with his usual t-shirt and jeans. It’s way too hot out for a blazer – plus, it’s not like anyone is even gonna see what he’s wearing under the graduation gown, so it doesn’t matter. He reluctantly takes his hat off – knowing he’ll have to wear the mortarboard, and won’t have anywhere to put his beanie – and tosses it onto his bed, then spends the last few minutes fixing his hair in the mirror before Archie pulls up.

They’re already a few minutes behind schedule, so Jughead darts outside right as the truck pulls up, locking the trailer’s door behind him, and hops into the passenger seat. Archie’s gown is laying in a pile in the back seat, so Jughead tosses his back there, too, and gives Archie a once-over.

“Aren’t you burning up?” He asks, gesturing to Archie’s button-down and suit jacket.

“Huh? Oh, nah,” Archie replies, but as he starts up the engine and pulls out of the trailer park, he turns the air conditioning on full-blast. “My dad thought I should dress up for graduation, since it’s kind of a big deal. I think he just said that so the graduation photos would look nice, though.”

“He doesn’t expect me to be in those photos, does he?”

“Are you kidding?” Archie glances over at him. “You’re family, Jug. You’re gonna be in those photos whether you like it or not. Remember middle-school graduation?”

He does. Fred had ushered him over after the ceremony and staged an entire photoshoot with him, Archie, and Betty. They’d all pretended to be embarrassed, but Jughead had secretly enjoyed how proud Fred was of all of them. He’d never liked being the center of attention, but his parents hadn’t made a big deal out of his graduation – and it really _wasn’t_ a big deal, but looking back on it, he wishes his parents had gotten more excited over little stuff like that. Every kid deserves to have a parent who gets more excited about their achievements than they do.

That memory, and all the others it brings up, are bittersweet. Jughead knows FP would’ve done anything to be here for him today, knows it would mean the world to his dad to watch him get his diploma.

“Your dad’s gonna film the ceremony, right?” Jughead asks.

Archie sighs in mock-exhaustion. “Yeah, probably. Like he doesn’t have enough home videos already.”

“Cool,” Jughead replies. He makes a mental note to ask Fred for a copy of the video, so he can show his dad one day.

They pull up to the Greendale stadium, and a wave of déjà vu washes over Jughead. Once they find a parking spot, this time, instead of shuffling through the crowds of families at the front entrance, Jughead grabs both of their gowns and mortarboards out of the back seat and tosses Archie’s at him. They get out of the truck to pull them on, complaining quietly about how hot it is and how dumb the gowns look.

Jughead asks, “So, where are we supposed to go?”

“Around the back, I think. There’s some kinda separate entrance.” Shading his eyes with his hand, Archie squints into the distance, where a sea of blue and gold dots indicate a line of students forming. “Maybe it’s a good thing we’re late. Everyone’s already over there.”

“Oh, shit, okay.” Jughead quickly readjusts the hem of his gown and runs his hand through his hair for what must be the hundredth time that day. He glances over at Archie, and he can’t keep from smiling.

Archie turns back to look at him, smiling back. “What?”

“Nothing,” Jughead says. “Just…this.”

Archie’s brow furrows. Jughead walks over to the other side of the truck and elbows him good-naturedly. “I mean, we didn’t even know if we were going to get to graduate in the first place,” he continues. “’Cause of all the shit that happened last year. But it worked out.”

Jughead follows Archie as he starts to make his way over to the crowd of other Riverdale seniors, and talks a little quieter. “And I never thought we’d get to graduate like _this_ ,” he adds, squeezing Archie’s hand.

It looks like the other seniors are broken up into groups by the first letter of their last names, so they can line up in order. Before they split up, Archie leans in and kisses Jughead quickly. Even though he's pretty sure no one's looking, and no one cares anyway, Jughead turns a combination of shy and embarrassed and flattered at all at once. He has to try not to smile as Archie jogs away towards the "A" group.

The ceremony passes basically the same way as it had the previous year, the only difference being that they’re sitting in front of the stage this time. The valedictorian this year gives a similarly dry speech, complete with yet _another_ mountain metaphor, and Jughead turns around to make a face at Archie a few rows behind him. Archie covers his mouth as he laughs.

Archie’s one of the first people called up, and after he gets his diploma and shakes the principal’s hand, he meets Jughead’s eyes quickly, and they both smile. Archie searches the bleachers for a second – Jughead figures he’s looking for his dad – and waves at him once he finds him. Even though Jughead doesn’t really give a shit about graduation, seeing Archie graduate fills him with warmth and pride. And relief, that they’re finally getting the fuck out of Riverdale High.

When it’s Jughead’s turn to cross the stage, he shuffles across as quickly as he can, self-conscious in front of the crowd, but before walking back to his seat, he manages to find Archie in the crowd and winks at him.

After what feels like six hours, they finally reach the end of the alphabet, and the principal reads out a little speech saying that they’ve all officially graduated and that they can move the tassels on their hats to the left or whatever.

All the families in the stands start clapping, and the principal tells the students not to throw their mortarboards in the air. Everyone does anyway. Including Jughead.

He shuffles through the crowd of blue and gold gowns until he finds Archie, and the two of them leave the stadium as quickly as they can, more than ready to be done with high school for good. Archie checks his phone and texts back and forth with his dad for a second, figuring out where to meet him, and then the two of them head outside to a spot behind the stadium.

As they get closer, Jughead spots Fred in the crowd of families, standing next to a taller woman with dark hair and a shorter figure behind her. Fred waves at them, and Jughead quickly recognizes the two others.

“Mom?” Jughead says incredulously.

“Hey, Jug.” Gladys smiles, and wraps him in a hug. It’s a little awkward – he’s not really a hugger – but it’s nice anyways.

“And JB!” Jughead exclaims. “I didn’t think you guys were coming!”

“I got a couple of the others at the shop to cover me for a few days so JB and I could come down and be here for you,” his mom adds. “Congratulations, kiddo.”

Jughead smiles down at the ground. “Thanks, mom.”

“Of course we were gonna come, dummy,” JB replies, and he hugs her, too, for good measure, lifting her up and spinning her around in a circle.

“You cut your hair, huh?” Jughead asks, ruffling JB’s short, spiky buzz cut. JB makes a face and elbows him, laughing, before suddenly looking serious.

“You know about me going by JB, right?”

“Yeah, of course. As if you could get any cooler,” Jughead replies. JB smiles bashfully.

“You know what being non-binary is?”

“Yeah,” Jughead says. “Are you—"

“Yeah,” JB answers. “I am.”

“Cool,” Jughead says simply, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Pronouns?”

“They/them.” JB adds, looking a little relieved. Jughead hopes they weren’t too worried about coming out to him – at this point, pretty much everyone he knows in Riverdale is gay or trans or both, and it’s not like it was really a surprise coming from JB, either. And here he’d thought all along that Riverdale was a boring little town of straight, cis people.

“You got it. My friend Peaches uses those, too.” He adds.

“Your friend _who_?” JB asks.

“It’s a Serpents thing,” Jughead explains, realizing names like Fangs, and Sweet Pea, and Peaches and Cream are more normal to him than they are to – well, most people. “They’re pretty much all just named after nouns. You’ll get used to it.” JB laughs.

Fred insists on taking photos of them, and Jughead and Archie pretend to be exasperated by his parental enthusiasm for about two seconds before giving in and walking over to stand next to each other in a spot with good lighting, where they’re only slightly blinded by the sun. Once Fred has seemingly filled up his entire camera roll with photos, he gives them a thumbs up and puts his phone away, and Archie walks over to say hi to Jughead’s mom.

“So, you two finally got together, huh?” Gladys asks.

“Mom!” Jughead yelps, and Archie cracks up.

“What, am I wrong?”

“No,” Jughead admits. “But…how?”

“Honey, I’ve seen that coming since you were a kid.”

Jughead just shakes his head and laughs, not sure how to respond.

“I knew it,” JB adds.

“Okay, how did _you_ know?” Jughead asks, feeling like he’s in the Twilight Zone. “You met Archie for, like, two days, like a year and a half ago.”

“Uh,” JB says, rolling their eyes. “You literally ran away together. Also, it was obvious.”

Jughead looks over at Archie and shrugs. Of course a thirteen-year-old would figure their shit out before they did.

Archie spots something off in the distance and waves. “There’s Betty and Veronica,” he announces. Jughead looks over, and even though he hasn’t seen them in nine months – and Betty’s cut her hair short, apparently – he’d recognize them anywhere.

“We’re gonna go say hi – is that okay? We’ll be right back,” Jughead says, glancing at Gladys and then JB.

“Go ahead,” Gladys replies. “Fred and I have some catching-up to do.”

Betty and Veronica look like they’re deep in conversation, but once they see Archie and Jughead walking over, they all break into a sprint for the last few yards, and Betty launches herself at Jughead, hugging him full-force.

He wraps his arms around her and the months they’ve spent apart suddenly dissolve, and he’s just a normal kid, hugging his other best friend. He lets go of Betty and starts to ask how she’s been, but before he can get the words out, she walks over to hug Archie, and Veronica comes over to hug Jughead, too. It’s decidedly more awkward, but he appreciates the gesture.

Once Veronica pats him gently on the back and pulls away, Archie asks what Jughead had already been wondering.

“So where are – weren’t you guys both bringing someone?” He glances around, scanning the crowd for anyone who might be their new partners.

Betty and Veronica turn to look at each other, smiling but not saying anything. Archie looks as confused as Jughead feels, the gears in both of their heads whirring, and Jughead feels like he’s out of the loop somehow. Like it’s an inside joke he doesn’t understand.

And then, all at once, everything starts to make sense.

Veronica’s reluctance to tell Archie who she broke up with him for. Betty’s mysterious references to the person she’s dating, and her laughter when Jughead said he was excited to meet her.

“ _Oh_ ,” he and Archie say in sync.

Betty takes Veronica’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Yeah. Oh.” She smiles sheepishly.

“Well—” Jughead starts, turning to look at Archie. And he’d thought he and Archie were the ones with a big reveal. It’s one of his less eloquent moments.

“We, uh—” Archie says, equally at a loss for words.

For lack of a better explanation, Jughead grabs Archie’s hand, and looks up at Betty with a nervous smile. Betty and Veronica dissolve into laughter.

“Oh my god,” Veronica says breathlessly. “We’re all idiots.”

“Yeah, we are,” Archie responds, smiling so wide it looks like it hurts. He wraps an arm around Jughead and his other around Veronica, and Jughead pulls Betty in until they’re all hugging, a four-person cluster of laughter and tears and relief.

Once they pull apart, Betty wants to say hi to Fred, so they all walk back over with her. Everyone starts catching up with one another, recounting stories from college, and then someone brings up the idea of going to Pop’s, to which all of them immediately agree.

* * *

Miraculously, despite the customary crowd of kids coming from graduation, the diner has two tables open. They all pile in, Betty and Veronica sitting across from Archie and Jughead, and Fred, Gladys, and JB in the booth next to them.

After a few minutes, Pop comes over to say hi, and shakes Jughead and Archie’s hands, congratulating them on graduating.

“Thanks, Pop,” Jughead replies. “Took us long enough.”

Pop smiles in his usual wise-and-cryptic way. “You got there eventually, Jug. That’s the only thing that matters.”

Pop pats him on the shoulder, smiling, then heads over to talk to Gladys and Fred.

Jughead turns back to the table, where Betty and Veronica are recounting an incident where someone in their dorm set off the fire alarm by trying to cook microwave ramen without realizing that they needed to add water to the noodles. It’s been more than a year since they all hung out together, and yet it feels natural, somehow.

Jughead lets himself lean into Archie’s shoulder without stopping to look around at who might be watching. He could care less what anyone thinks. He’s fucking proud of himself, and of Archie.

Looking around the table at all of them, he feels, for once, like despite all the shit they’ve gone through, they’re all lucky. Lucky to have each other, to be on good terms again, to forgive each other and be forgiven.

Jughead knows the next few months will be nothing but change, and that it’ll be hard to leave Riverdale and everything he knows – including Archie – behind. But even with all that uncertainty ahead of him, he isn't scared, because there's an unspoken promise lingering in the air between them. It's a bond that Jughead has always felt, maybe ever since the first day he met Archie.

Once upon a time, he'd been terrified that he'd lost it for good, but after this year, after everything, he knows Archie feels it too: that this isn't the end. That no matter how far apart their lives may be, Archie will always come back for him, and he'll do the same. That he has friends, now: real friends, who care about him, and love him, bonds that have somehow withstood all the chaos Riverdale has thrown at them over the years.

He can’t wait to leave Riverdale, but for once, he knows he’ll miss parts of it, too. He won’t be leaving it all behind, though. Riverdale will always be where he’s from, but the truth is, the town itself is just a name and a place. For better or worse, the people in it – the ones who’ve made his life hell, and the ones who’ve opened their doors to him, who’ve accepted him into their families when he didn’t have anyone else – are what make it his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not crying you're crying  
> holy fuck this ended up being longer than i expected. originally i'd planned this to be a two-part fic, but...yeah i can't shut up 😌 at the beginning of the year i started trying to break out of my comfort zone of 1k words per chapter, and given that the last two chapters of this were 10k and 7.5k....safe to say i did  
> can't believe this is OVER but also i'm ready to get on with the next project! see u soon!  
> as always, i'm on tumblr @jugheadsucks! drop a comment if you enjoyed, they mean the world to me <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! drop a comment to help me survive quarantine. 😔✊  
> i'm on tumblr @jugheadsucks!


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